


...and then they danced

by kdaught



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Draco Malfoy Redemption, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Falling In Love, Fluff, Friendship, Friendship/Love, How Do I Tag, M/M, Slow Burn, Smart Draco Malfoy, Yule Ball (Harry Potter), and Ron & Harry are watching, cause if JKR doesn't do it then i will, he's nerding together with Hermione, or at least an attempt at it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:21:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 31,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27867549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kdaught/pseuds/kdaught
Summary: In the end, the only thing they needed to overcome their animosity was the Yule Ball and their own stubbornness to not back down from a challenge to dance.AN: This fic takes place from the Yule Ball to the end of Book 4, following canon as much as possible!
Relationships: Draco Malfoy & Blaise Zabini, Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Hermione Granger & Draco Malfoy & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley
Comments: 61
Kudos: 281





	1. The dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just reread The Goblet of Fire and i completely forgot that the Weird Sisters are playing and that the whole thing ends really party-like. 
> 
> So no Weird Sisters here, the whole evening just continues as a ball :)

Harry sat there, head propped on his elbow, and bored to death.

After Parvati had run off with a boy from Beauxbatons a few hours ago, the evening had turned into a dull haze of boredom. Not that he held it against her or anything, in fact, he was glad that she and Padma had left him and Ron. They would have more fun this way and maybe make something out of this evening after all. 

He had been left with nothing but a Butterbeer in his hand and Ron at his left, who wasn’t helping much with Harry’s boredom either, staring silently at Hermione from across the room. 

Speaking of Butterbeer, he realized that he should probably get a refill if he wanted to survive the rest of the evening, and got up from his place next to Ron, who didn't even notice him leave.

His stomach growled at the sight of the food on the tables, and although he had eaten more than enough before the dance, he sighed and added a snack to the list as well.

So as he was making his way to the end of the table, a sudden kind of dizziness overwhelmed him, the room turned before his eyes and he was stumbling violently towards one of the nearby tables to prop himself up. It seems like he wasn’t so sure on his feet as he had first thought, and that he probably shouldn’t have stood up so fast after sitting there for several hours. 

“Merlin, can’t you watch your feet, Potter?!”

Harry’s head flew up and he glanced warily towards the direction of the voice. Malfoy was standing before him, ever-present sneer plastered on his face and wearing black robes with a high collar. Harry thought they made him look like a pompous git.

“Shut up, Malfoy,” Harry said tiredly and straightened up. It was a low comeback, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with him just now.

“My, aren’t you in a bad mood. Are you upset because that foul Gryffindor girl has left you by yourself?”

“And you? Shouldn’t you be swirling off with your date right now, whoever it is?”

Malfoy pulled a face. “I’m sure Pansy will excuse me if I go grab a drink for a minute.” He stared Harry in the eyes, “Because unlike some, I have a partner that didn’t run off the moment they finished dancing with me.”

Harry glowered at him. “I’ll have you know I could be an adequate dance partner if I want to try, Malfoy.”

He snorted. “Anyone who witnessed the dance before would disagree. Especially someone with actual dancing experience.”

Harry wrinkled his nose and stepped forward away from the table. “You think you could do better, Malfoy?” he growled and sighed inwardly. Malfoy always found a way to wind him up over the worst sort of things.

It was a challenge, and by the mischievous twinkle in Malfoy's eyes, he knew Malfoy realized it too. 

“Oh, please. Is that even a question?”.

They took little steps towards each other while staring at each other threateningly. Harry had the sudden thought that to outsiders, they would look like angry lions circling each other, until they stood an armlength away from each other and Malfoy lifted his hand on Harry’s waist, effectively making Harry jump out of his skin.

“What the bloody hell are you doing?” he hissed menacingly.

“Obviously I’m leading, what do you think I’m doing?” Malfoy retorted with a smirk.

Harry grumpily scowled back at him and surrendered to his fate. Malfoy’s hand grew painfully firm, and Harry yelped. 

“Oi! Watch yourself, Malfoy!” he cried out, and surprisingly, his grip grew slightly less painful

Malfoy's other hand snatched Harry's, and Harry had no more time to think about the sudden change in Malfoy’s behavior. 

Reluctantly Harry latched onto the competition again. He glared at Malfoy one last time and pressed his hand on his shoulder, so much he was sure it had to hurt.

“I’m sure you know the basics of dancing, right? Malfoy said and added: "Though, on the other hand, it didn’t seem like it during your dance before.”

“Of course I know the basics. I’m not stupid!”

“I’m not quite sure I believe that.” And then, without any second warning, started moving. Harry was taken aback by the abruptness and stumbled inconspicuously after him. Though, if Malfoy’s irritated expression was anything to go by, not successfully.

“Just don’t trip over my feet, Potter, it can’t be that difficult.”

"You try to keep up with this ridiculous pace." Harry grumbled, but he was more focused on not stumbling at the moment than on anything else. 

Still lagging behind him, Harry started to slowly adjust to the movements of the dance and relaxed somewhat. He felt Malfoy’s hand on his waist tugging him along and guiding him, intentionally or not, and, although he didn’t want to, Harry felt glad about it.

It was then that he looked up from their feet up to Malfoy for the first time since the dance began. He looked at their interjoined hands and his own uselessly laying on Malfoy’s shoulder. He glanced from his shoulder up to his face, and only noticed at that moment how close the two of them were standing to each other. Actually, it was the first time Harry had ever been this close to Malfoy outside their fights before, and he took this opportunity to really look at his face for the first time. He presumed he wouldn’t look all that bad if wasn’t for that nearly ever-present sneer-

All of the sudden, Malfoy’s sneer turned into a teasing smile and Harry had only a millisecond to proceed what he was about to do before he _dipped_ Harry right then and there.

His hand moved to Harry's back to prop him up and he leaned down to Harry. " Admiring my looks, are we?" he taunted under his breath before pulling him up again.

Slightly disorientated, Harry smirked right back at him. “You wish.”

Malfoy scoffed opposite to him and stayed silent. Then he maneuvered Harry out of the little spot they had been staying in before and Harry decided that he’d had enough. No longer needing to stare at his feet to watch his steps anymore he full-on stared Malfoy right into the eyes and steered against his lead. It was then that their dance turned into something a little more reminiscent of their usual interactions, each of them tried to overpower the other to get the lead. They moved across the dance floor rapidly, making odd little circles, more fighting than dancing with each other. 

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was surprised they hadn’t crashed into some other couple already and looked away from Malfoy at his surroundings, and his blood ran cold. Many of the students had stopped dancing and in the whirlwind of their movements, he saw the shocked and surprised faces of the crowd spin around them. 

Suddenly he had to close his eyes from the flickering lights and brought his eyes back at Malfoy again.

“Doesn’t this bother you at all?” Harry spoke up softly.

“What? The audience? Or the fact that I’m currently making a decent dancer out of Harry bloody Potter?” he looked contemplative for a while, “The second one definitely bothers me more.”

Harry couldn’t help but snort. “I actually meant the first one, but thanks.”

“Oh, the only ability you have to dance is only because of my being here, Potter,” he retorted.

 _“Very reassuring,”_ Harry muttered under his breath, which earned him a glare from Malfoy.

“… but to answer your question, I for one certainly enjoy being the center for attention.”

Harry snickered and rolled his eyes. “Yes, we all know you’re very dramatic.”

Malfoy stared at him in silence for a few seconds and then the most unexpected thing of the entire evening happened as if the whole rest of the evening hadn't been bizarre enough. 

He laughed, _actually laughed_ at Harry. 

Not one of the smiles of before, the smirks or the sneers, the ones he had mocked him with, or the ones he put up to accessorize his words. No, it was an actual laugh, and at that moment something akin to understanding settled in Harry’s stomach. Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

At that moment, the world seemed to only consist of them, as the lights spiraled around them as the music hit its peak. The hand on his waist and the other in his own, grasping it firmly, was the only thing he was feeling, heck, even his feet didn't seem to touch the ground anymore, almost as if they were floating. Sweat ran down Harry's face. But he didn’t mind. He didn’t feel the exhaustion at all. 

He felt weightless.

Malfoy made a little twirl, but Harry didn’t stumble, didn’t even break out of the strange feeling that was surrounding them, he just followed Malfoy’s lead and for that one time, giving control to someone else felt comforting, not frustrating. The lights of the feast twirled around them as they spiraled faster and faster and made turn by turn, step by step, more and more quickly, and Harry was firmly convinced his feet had left the ground by now.

And then…

It stopped. 

And then they were standing there, gasping for air, the exhaustion finally having caught up with them. The music had suddenly stopped, and all that Harry could hear was the sound of people speaking and whispering.

It was then that Harry remembered that they were still in the Great Hall and that there were still people surrounding them, watching them, and he finally broke his gaze away from Malfoy and looked around. 

There were barely any couples left on the dance floor anymore, and the stares of the people on him felt uncomfortable, even though he should be used to all the attention at this point in his life, it felt overwhelming. And when he couldn’t bear their stares anymore, he looked back at Malfoy again, and what he saw there was an odd reflection of his own feelings.

He saw the conflict, the confusion, and something else he easily identified as self-hatred, because oh, how well Harry knew that look. Then something changed again, and Harry saw how sadness overcame Malfoy, just for one short moment, before it was swiftly replaced with a mask of Malfoy’s well-practiced sneer.

Because Harry recognized it as a mask now, and he saw the different emotions swirling beneath it. So, instead of being offended he just smiled at Malfoy, turned away, and walked back to his seat next to Ron, who looked just as confused and shocked as Harry felt himself. New couples slowly filled the dance floor and the evening continued, although Harry still heard the whispers in the back of his mind and felt their eyes on him.

And when he eventually stood up again and walked to the table to finally grab some food, Malfoy was nowhere to be found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, I hope you enjoyed that chapter! It always bugged me that there weren't any good fanfics of them at the yule ball so i decided to just write my own! 
> 
> This was supposed to be a one-shot but it instead turned into a whole story! No regrets from me tho ;)
> 
>   
> I edited the first few chapters recently, so if I've deleted anything you liked, I'm really sorry!


	2. Chapter 2

When Harry opened his eyes, he saw light shine through the curtains of his bed.

Everything was silent except for Ron's faint snores in the background. It felt peaceful and calming and Harry sleepily thought wanted to go back to sleep. But then memories of the last evening rushed to him, and he bolted up in his bed, horrified.

Barely awake, he got up, dressed, and stumbled out of their bedroom. When he walked into the common room, he saw Hermione buried in one of her books, brows knitted together as if frustrated about something. She hadn't looked up when he had walked in, and although Harry wanted to go and ask her what was wrong, the thought of not speaking to anybody yet was too nice.

Fortunately, not many students were up yet, most of them still catching up on sleep. So with nothing else to do, he left the common room and walked in the direction of the Great Hall. He thought maybe he could grab some food early and avoid everyone else for the rest of the morning.

He should really spend some time alone to do some thinking.

That's how he found himself sitting down at his usual spot in the Great Hall. As he had predicted, even in the great hall weren’t many students around yet, and so he could sit there in silence and enjoy his meal all by himself. He was gulping down the last sips of his glass of pumpkin juice, as he looked up at the entrance of the great hall and saw who just came in.

Malfoy.

He was walking next to Zabini, who was talking agitated about something, swinging his hands around. Harry thought Malfoy looked entirely too tired and irritated to deal with that, but Blaise either didn’t notice or cared. Harry wondered what they were talking about.

The two sat down in a random seat at the Slytherin table and began to eat, Zabini still talking to Malfoy, who was still ignoring him relentlessssly. He didn’t look in Harry's direction once.

Feeling oddly disappointed all of the sudden, Harry finished drinking his glass of Pumpkin juice in one go, shoved down the rest of his food, and quickly stood up and walked out of the great hall.

He _really_ needed some time to think.

* * *

His feet unconsciously carried him up the stairs to the Owlery, and he passed a lot of students. Many of them looked at him strangely, some even outright staring at him. Not that that was something new for Harry, especially for this year, but it still was unsettling.

 _'Looks like I'll have to use the invisibility cloak more often over the next few weeks until the whole thing cools down, huh?'_ he thought with disdain. Though he realized he didn’t really regret the dance. He just hated the fact that it put him in even more spotlight than he already was, and that he had to worry about his friends.

Oh, won't _that_ be a pain to work through. Just the thought of explaining the situation to them made him break out in cold sweat.

He shook his head vigorously and tried to distract his thoughts from the confrontation he would soon have to face. He was practically running up steps at that point, wanting to get to the Owlery as soon as possible. He wanted to clear his thoughts and figure this shit out before he met the others. He knew he had been lucky this morning that he would have to talk to them at some point.

He opened the door to the Owlery and stepped inside. He heard the hoots of the owls, felt the cold and bracing wind, and breathing suddenly felt much easier. He felt himself unwind and sat down next to Hedwig and crawled her head. She hooted back in return and Harry couldn't help but smile a little. That was exactly why he had come here, to get some fresh air and a clear head. Seeing Hedwig was nice too though.

So he leaned back against the wall of the Owlery and kept brushing Hedwig's feathers absentmindedly, his thoughts far, far away.

* * *

Harry shoved his fork into the food before him and held back yet another sneeze.

The day had passed in a whirlwind of boredom and anticipation. He had been forced to leave the Owlery no bit wiser, and half-frozen to dead, just what he should've expected, _really_ , spending a few hours up there in the cold. As he had been walking to the Gryffindor Tower, as slowly as he could to delay the inevitable questions that he had been sure would come. But they hadn't. For some reason. That just means he had spent the whole day dreading the evening, sitting in one of the big armchairs next to the fire, and sneezing quietly.

The calm that had followed him for a good few hours still after the Owlery dissolved eventually, leaving him annoyed at himself and with what was probably a cold. _Geat._

It didn't help that wherever he went people were watching him, staring and whispering, in a way that made it pretty obvious that they were talking about him. During the time he had been away, Hermione and Ron had apparently made an agreement to not talk about _anything_ that had happened yesterday evening, not their fight and, fortunately, not Harry's Dance with Malfoy. 

Dinner was no exception to that. Since they had sat down, none of them had spoken a word to each other. Fortunately, that meant that Harry was left alone too. He continued to push his food around on his table, chin resting on his head. He gazed around in the Great Hall until his eyes unwillingly landed on Malfoy's blond her, standing out of the other dark-haired students around him. Like in the morning, he was sitting next to Zabini, but judging from the way they were facing away from each other, pointedly ignoring their presence, Harry thought they had been in an argument sometime during the day. 

Then, Malfoy looked up unexpectedly and locked eyes with Harry. It was the first time Harry had seen his face clearly today, and he thought something in it had changed. In all the years they'd known each other, more for bad than good, and all the times they'd looked into each other's eyes, Malfoy had looked at him furiously, tauntingly and confidently (and Harry suspected he'd looked back similarly), he'd never been so calm. Well, save yesterday.

Suddenly, he heard someone call his name and felt an elbow pierce into his stomach. Harry had to close his eyes in pain and look away from Malfoy.

“Harry, were you even listening?” Hermione asked him, a weird look on her face. Harry didn’t know what to answer that, because he had no idea what she was talking about. Hermione didn’t seem to expect an answer from him anyway and repeated her question.

“I asked you if you’ve already got somewhere with working out the clue inside the golden egg.” She said, matter-of-factly

“oh, I- I think I’ve got a pretty good idea what it’s about now” he lied. In fact, he had completely forgotten about the egg. He still had to try out the advice Cedric had given him the day earlier. Maybe he should go to the prefect bathroom sometime in the night, since he didn’t want to get caught by prefects in their bathroom, of all things.

“Is that what you have been doing the whole day?” Ron cut in, he too was looking at him strangely.

Harry wasn’t sure what to tell them. He could hardly tell them he had been sitting in the Owlery all day, thinking about Malfoy. Well, he could, but he didn’t want to imagine their reactions to that. He didn’t know how to start talking about that dance with them anyway. So he just simply said "yes" and hoped they would leave him alone for a little while longer.

“So,” Ron cut in again after a few moments of silence “what was yesterday evening about, mate?” Harry cursed Ron inside his mind and turned around to glare at him. He could practically feel the sudden stares of everyone near their seats, listening in to their conversation. He didn’t even know what to say to them. The truth?

Because he couldn't come up with something else he decided the truth couldn’t hurt and muttered “He challenged me”. _‘There, that should be enough right?’_ he thought, hoping they would stop interrogating him in front of everyone. 

But Ron had other plans. He stared at him for a few seconds, horrified. “Why would you accept a **challenge to dance** with BLOODY MALFOY of all people?!” Ron said loudly, trying to keep the horror and disgust out of his face, but not succeeding. Hermione tried to shut him up, the only one with a clear head at the table, because everyone around them was whispering loudly again.

Harry laid his fork down on his half-finished meal, stood up, and walked away. He could hear Hermione loudly scolding Ron as he passed the Slytherin table and locked his gaze with Malfoy’s again, who lifted an eyebrow and smirked. It was different from his usual smirks though, not at all disdainful. It was more playful and challenging, and Harry found himself smirking back unconsciously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading yet another chapter of this fanfic! i hope you enjoyed and i could get across all the thoughts i had for this chapter.  
> Please bear with my writing style! I'm still learning and getting more comfortable as the story progresses!


	3. Chapter 3

Draco prowled through the cold corridors, away from the inhospitable common room.

Since the holidays had started, he hadn’t been spending much time with his housemates. Not that they did that much anyway. They certainly weren’t as bloody ‘cuddly’ as the Gryffindors were, and although he'd thought that that was positive, he wouldn't mind if they showed him a little more compassion at the moment. They were really pissing him off with all of their silent questions and judgmental stares. Some even came up to him and delivered their judgment personally. How they thought he was ‘getting weak’ or some bullshit and how he could have ‘took more advantage of a perfect situation’.

So he’d rather not deal with them at the moment. That was also why he was currently on his way to get the hell out of these damp dungeons to the library to get some fucking quiet and time to study because… he hadn’t done any of his homework yet. He was so embarrassed about it.

Normally he would have everything finished already and would silently make fun of his classmates struggling with it. Or he would help them out, for a favor in return of course. It was one of the things his father had taught him, to always be ahead of his classmates so he could take advantage of their struggles. Lucious would be ashamed if he knew how his son was spending his precious time. Not on studying, no, but on… Potter. His head had been filled with thoughts about the fucking golden boy in the last few days. Since… well, since their dance. He was still not sure what the hell happened to make him dance with fucking Potter, of all people. And he couldn’t concentrate on anything other than how he had looked at him ever since, how his hand had felt on his. It was infuriating. He was so angry with himself, but he couldn’t seem to stop his own had from thinking. So he decided, he would use the obnoxious speed of his thoughts for something other than the wonder boy and try to do his homework which he desperately had to do.

His feet stopped in front of the door to the library and he pushed it open. The smell of books immediately filled his nose. He stepped forward to one of the tables, surprised by the small number of people that were sitting in the library. He placed his bag on the floor and sat down. This place had always relaxed him, and it was a contributing factor to his good grades, although the weight of his family’s expectations resting on his shoulders can't be ignored. Still, it was nice to actually have an interest in studying, instead of being compelled to do it.

He sighed, took out his quill and paper and opened his books, and begun to write his potions essay.

* * *

After he had spent a good amount of time writing the potions essay out of pure memory recollection, he was forced to stand up and search for a book to answer those parts he didn’t know yet. So he left his things behind on the table and walked to the potions part of the library, passing a few other students, which were fortunately too absorbed into their work to notice him walking by. As he turned the corner to his required section of shelves, he stopped in his tracks.

Potter was sitting on the floor of the library, like the complete fool he was, engrossed in one of the books. Sunlight was hitting his face and it reflected off his glasses on one of the nearby bookshelves. Draco’s heart skipped a beat. _‘Out of pure surprise of course’_ , he told himself immediately. Then he decided he had been creepy enough, staring at Potter like that, and opened his mouth to speak before Potter would look up and catch him gawking like a goddamn idiot.

“What are you sitting on the floor for, Potter? Too dumb to get a chair?” he said, and as soon as the words were out of his mouth, Potter nearly jumped out of his skin and snapped his head around towards Draco’s direction. Draco made the effort to casually lean against the shelf and appearing nonchalant.

Before Potter could retort anything to his comment, he took a few steps forward and took a look at the book he was holding in his hands.

“Wow, am I seeing this correctly? The boy-who-lived-to-fail-in-potions actually picking up a potions book? Wonders never cease to exist.” He said, smirking.

“Well, I gotta catch up on that sometime. Can’t let you have all the success, or else you’d grow lazy, wouldn’t you?” Potter responded calmly, looking back into his book again.

Draco was caught off guard by Potter's unusual calm tone. “You’re trying to catch up to me? After four years of completely failing the subject? Are you out of your mind Potter?!” he finally said. “Perhaps it would be more beneficial to set some smaller goals first". ' _Well, and certainly easier for me, as if I now wanted to deal with this rivalry in potions too',_ he thought. Although he could admit it, he was somewhat thrilled by the idea. Potter was right, he really had gotten lazy in potions lately. Not that he would ever tell him that.

“Well, passing would be nice too, to be honest” Potter answered with a grin in Draco's direction.

' _Had his smile always been so bright?'_ It did strange things to his stomach, that was for sure. So he blamed his next words entirely on the strange feeling that this smile caused; “Do you need some help, then?” Potter seemed as taken aback by these words as he was, for he stared at Draco for a few seconds in complete bewilderment.

“What, from you?”

“No, from Longbottom, you dunderhead. As if anyone could teach you better than me.”

“Yeah, true but…” Potter trailed off; surprise still written all over his face.

“You know what, never mind, forget about it.“ He said, turning away from Potter, beginning to walk away.

“Yeah! No! I mean, it would be nice if you would!”

He jumped up from his seat on the floor and took a few steps to stop Draco from leaving, who turned around once more, looked Potter in the eyes for a few seconds to make sure he was serious, and when he found what he was looking for, spoke up again.

“Just so you know it, I’m not going to sit on the floor and look like a complete dunderhead. I still have a reputation to uphold." He turned around and walked away again until he noticed that Potter wasn’t following him. He sighed and said, “That implied that we were obviously going to sit at the tables like normal people, Potter. Come, follow me." he said, his tone final, and with a second thought added; "And take your book with you. We’re going to need it if I’m going to knock some sense into that head of yours.” Then he started walking again slowly until he heard footsteps following him and sped up.

‘Can’t grow weak on him, after all’ he thought to himself, and then shook his head in annoyance when he realized that he already had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small chapter of them meeting at the library that i didn't plan that way at all!  
> So there are gonna be some more chapters because i am absolutely in love with them and their relationship dynamic and i hope you are too!


	4. Chapter 4

With a groan, Harry sank his head down to the table in front of him. He should have known from the start that studying with Malfoy would not be easy, him being the obnoxious git he was. It was a miracle that they had been able to have as many civilian conversations as they had. Although he had to admit that Malfoy wasn’t as irritating as before. And it _was_ nice that he was helping him out with potions, and he was learning a great deal more than in Snape’s lessons. So, it wasn't like he was ungrateful for his efforts, but Malfoy certainly didn’t go easy on him either. So, who could blame him if he closed his eyes for a few seconds and just listened to Malfoy’s calm voice, babbling on and on?

“ _…the Calming Draught is a potion that is used to calm a person down after they have had suffered a shock, trauma, or emotional outburst. Even if it works fine in most situations, sometimes it may give a disastrous outcome, for instance, if animals like cats and dogs drink it._ To brew it, you’d have cut lavender and Peppermint into small pieces and then proceed to add- “ he paused, having only noticing now that Harry was lying there, half asleep.

“Potter? Potter have you been listening to a word I said?” he said, accusingly, and although he sounded angry, it was with a tint of fondness and nowhere near his usual malice, so Harry didn’t really bother to answer him, and continued to feign sleep. That was another thing that changed, actually. The old Malfoy would have hexed him for not paying attention to him. The great change in his personality bugged Harry.

“Potter??” Malfoy whispered very loudly. There weren’t many other students around, but even if there were, yelling wouldn’t exactly go down well.

“Yeah no, no, go on, I’m listening” Harry eventually murmured into his arm.

“You obviously aren’t, don’t even try to tell me otherwise.” He said, his tone final. Then he added “You are way more distracted than usual. Is something bothering the all-powerful savior?” and although he said it mockingly, he sounded genuinely concerned.

“You know, the usual. Just trying to decipher a magical artifact, so I don’t die in a stupid tournament I didn’t even want to **participate** in! And to do that, I have to deal with the trouble of sneaking into the prefect’s **_bathroom_** of all things! Ah, and let’s not forget trying to prepare for the annual attack of Voldemort, because god **forbid Harry Potter would get a break for a goddamn year!!** ” He said, his voice growing louder as he proceeded, but still not loud enough to get them thrown out of the library, although it was tempting. He ignored Malfoy’s flinch when he said Voldemort’s name, annoyed.

“Wait, what does the prefect’s bathroom has to do with anything?” Malfoy asked after thinking a few seconds about everything Harry had just said.

“I don't know, it’s just some hint Cedric gave to me. But I hadn’t had any time to try it out yet.”

He was quiet for a moment and Harry nearly dozed off on his arm again until he suddenly spoke up again.

"You know, if you needed my help with anything, I might be able to lower myself to help the golden boy survive. The wizarding world would certainly show me eternal gratitude” he said, trying to appear nonchalant. But once again, Harry saw behind that mask.

So he sat up, straightened his back, and retorted: "I would be honored, O dear savior of the boy who lived. How I would ever be able to repay this favor is beyond me." He said mockingly, finishing off the statement with a small bow. As he sat up again, he saw a smile on Malfoy’s face. A real smile. Not one of his smirks or feigned smiles that he sometimes put up when Parkinson talked to him and it was so unexpected that Harry froze up.

“You don’t have to try so hard, scarhead,” Malfoy then said,smile still on his face. "...and as for the reward, it would be enough if you simply listened to me when I explained something," he finished grumpily, and his smile was replaced by a sinister look again.

Harry surrendered himself to his fate and sat up again.

* * *

Completely drained, and with a buzzing headache, he returned to the Gryffindor tower. It was already dark outside, and he felt ready to collapse on his bed and sleep.

He unconsciously muttered the password to the fat lady and stepped inside. The common room was glowing with a calming fire and many students were sitting around playing games or talking with each other. It made him think of why he loved his house so much, even if it certainly had its bad times.

He spotted Hermione and Ron sitting on the sofa, chatting to each other. They painfully reminded him that he had neglected his friends and classmates a bit in the last few days. He had been too busy doing homework and studying Potions with Malfoy, which they probably thought was very unlike him. So that’s why he decided to make up for it and walked towards where they were sitting.

“Hey, guys,” he said and sat down next to them. They greeted him too, albeit shooting him some looks.

He looked at them questioningly, suppressing a sigh. Everyone had been treating him differently for the past days since the dance and he had thought at least they would let it be.

“Uhm, can we speak to you about something, Harry?” Hermione began, and warningly boxed Ron into the stomach. “It’s about Malfoy,” she said, and Harry once again suppressed a groan, “We were wondering… Uhm, if you could give us an explanation of what’s going on... an elaborate one, this time!” she added quickly before he could say anything.

Harry stared at them for a few seconds, trying to think of what to say. Then, actually sighing this time, he lowered his head and told them the truth, “I don’t know what ‘ _going on’_ Hermione. I’m quite baffled myself.” He sighed again and looked up at them again, their expectant faces telling him to keep going. “I can just remember that we danced, as I said, and Malfoy was so different from before. We actually had a civil conversation for once,” he grinned “and I kinda just noticed that he had been putting on this facade to hide behind... So, I thought that maybe he wasn't all that bad.” He finished, lamely, and shrugged.

Hermione was just sitting there, thinking about what he just said, but Ron looked at Harry, appalled. He was speaking before Hermione's elbow could prevent it; “But it's Malfoy! You know, the git who mocked us for years! The one who called Hermione a mudblood,” Hermione glared at him, but Ron went on “…tried to get Hagrid fired and who’s father’s probably a bloody **Death Eater!** And you’re telling me he isn’t all that bad?!” He began to stand up, but Hermione grabbed him and pulled him down into his seat again.

“ _What Ron wants to say_ , is that we're worried about you, Harry! He’s still Malfoy you know? Maybe the only reason he's suddenly so nice means that he's trying a different approach! You'd expect that from a Slytherin!"

Harry thought about that. It was true. Up until now, Malfoy had never really acted like a Slytherin, so maybe the whole thing was just one of his usual schemes. But, as much as that would set him at ease _because Merlin, that smile today had been unsettling,_ he didn’t think so. It was just too much, even for a Slytherin, to fake. Or at least he hoped so.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. “Even if that were true, I'd still want to risk it. I think this is worth it.” He looked at his friends with a resolute look in his eyes, who in turn sighed, shared a look, but he saw that they would let it go, for now.

Well, he thought that until Ron chipped in; “Harry, what was that rumor about you _studying_ with Malfoy in the library about?”, and snickered at Harry’s baffled look. Hermione cried out Ron’s name, amused, and Harry boxed him in the shoulder. They all stared at each other for a second until Hermione let out a chuckle and they dissolved into laughter.

From then on, he knew that they were okay again.


	5. Chapter 5

Harry sat down at the table of his first class. The holidays had passed far too soon and with far too much homework for his taste. He had only slept for a few hours the night before because he had been catching up on all the assignments he hadn’t done yet. Ron, who had just sat down next to him, hadn’t been much better off.

He already wanted to bang his head on the table to drive away from the headache that was coming on, and class hadn't even started yet. To keep himself from nodding off, he opened his eyes again and looked around the class. Most of the other students looked just as tired as he did, and he knew many of them had struggled with homework yesterday just as badly as he had.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Malfoy enter the room, looking just as stuck-up as Harry remembered him. It hurt just to look at him. After their last study session in the library, Harry hadn't been able to speak to Malfoy once. He had ignored him when they ran into each other in the hallways, had ignored his stares during their meals, he hadn't even shown up for their already planned meetings in the library. And Harry would know, since he spent most of his time there, hoping Malfoy would show up. Harry had looked him up frequently on the Marauder’s Map after that, but most of the time he had just been in his room in the Slytherin's dorm. And when he wasn’t there, he was avoiding Harry whenever he saw him. Practically running away from him at one point.

 _‘Pure waste of time’_ Harry thought, annoyed with himself. He could’ve used the wasted time to do his homework and spend time with his friends instead of sitting uselessly in the library like a bloody maiden in her tower waiting for her prince.

The ‘I told you so’ looks Ron and Hermione had given him were the worst though. He knew that it had taken them a lot to give Malfoy a chance. And Malfoy had blown it. He had taken Harry’s hope and thrown it in the bin. So when he saw Malfoy enter the classroom out of the corner of his eye, he looked away to ignore him, to show him that he didn't give a damn anymore. _‘And I don’t. I really don’t care. That jerk didn’t deserve my time in the first place anyway.’_ he thought to himself and was almost convinced of it when he threw a subtle glance at Malfoy and saw that he hadn't looked in his direction once.

He was startled at the pain in his chest.

* * *

There was thick snow on the grounds, and the greenhouse windows were so thickly covered with condensation that it was impossible to see out of them during Herbology. No one was particularly looking forward to Care of Magical Creatures in this weather, although Harry was excited at seeing Hagrid again.

Maybe they should tell him that he and Ron had overheard him and Madam Maxime talking on the night of the Yule Ball. Then they could let him know that they didn't care at all that he was a half-giant. Harry was deep in thought after that, thinking about how they could break it to him gently. 

But when they arrived at Hagrid's cottage, there wasn't Hagrid standing there, but an old witch with short gray hair.

“Hurry up, the bell rang five minutes ago!" she barked at them as she saw them stomping through the thick snow towards the house.

"Who are you?" asked Ron, glowering at her. "Where's Hagrid?"

"My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank." She said curtly, "I'm your substitute teacher for Care of Magical Creatures."

“And where’s Hagrid?” Ron repeated loudly.

“He is indisposed.” She answered shortly. “Now, would you follow me please?” she said and strode off away from the cabin.

Harry, Ron, and Hermione hurried to catch up with her, sharing a baffled look.

“What’s wrong with Hagrid,” Harry asked. He genuinely wanted to see him. Was he ill?

“Never you mind,” she said, as though he was being nosy. Harry spoke up again, then, but she ignored him and kept on walking towards a tree on the edge of the Forest, where a magnificent unicorn was tied up. With that, Professor Grubbly-Plank then started her lesson about unicorns, but Harry was still deep in thought. The moment he was sure the professor couldn’t hear him anymore he turned to Ron and said: “What do you think is wrong with Hagrid?”

“Oh, he hasn’t been attacked, if that’s what you’re thinking.” Parkinson barked in from behind them. Harry turned around. There she was standing, Zabini and Malfoy on either side of her. Harry forced himself to not acknowledge Malfoy and looked solely at Pansy as she continued talking. “No, he's just too ashamed to show his big ugly face.”

“What do you mean?” Harry said sharply.

“Hate to break it to you but… doesn’t seem like any parents would want their kids to be taught by him in the future. Him being a half-giant and all.” She sniggered and took out a newspaper article, today's edition of the _Daily Prophet._

Harry ripped the newspaper out of her hands, unfolded it, and read it, with Ron, Seamus, Dean, and Neville looking over his shoulder.

The beginning was an obnoxious article about Hagrid’s past and how he was expelled as a third year. Someone had doubtlessly found out about Hagrid being a Half-Giant at the same time as he and Ron had. Harry was vexed and kept on skimming the article stuffed with half-truths, thinking about the inanity of it all, when he saw that Malfoy had given a statement too. To the _Daily Prophet_. Probably a few days ago.

It was nothing new, he supposed, but it was something Harry would’ve expected from the old Malfoy, not the one Harry got to know in the last few days. He looked up from the paper at Malfoy, who just stood there, haughty as ever. He was looking at Harry and his friends and smirked mockingly at them.

It was nothing like the playful grin Malfoy had given him in the days after the Yule Ball. No, it was a look full of malice, and although Harry had been creeped out by Malfoys sudden amiability and had sometimes wished the old Malfoy back again, he now saw what kind of mistake he had made in thinking that.

He had missed the new him already during the last week, but that had been nowhere near as heartbreaking as this. He had already missed the bickering Malfoy, the almost friendly Malfoy, the Malfoy who had offered him to help with the Golden Egg. But before he at least had the illusion that they could go back to that again. But now all that hope fell away.

The Malfoy he had been slowly beginning to like was already out of reach as if he had never existed in the first place. And maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Hermione had been right, and everything that Malfoy had said to him, every playful smirk, and even the few smiles Harry had seen had _all been an act_. An act to make Harry trust him, to maybe give him even more secrets to make fun of, to give to the Daily Prophet, just like the information about Hagrid’s parentage. And that thought made Harry **furious.** It made him feel utterly and completely **betrayed**. …but he could only stand there, still frozen, but this time with rage, and he stared at Malfoy's mocking grin.

Even when Professor Grubbly-Plank's voice eventually drew his attention back to her class and he had to turn back to her lesson about unicorns, his anger seethed in his stomach, just barely contained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys I hope you enjoyed that chapter! Im sorry i was offline for the last few weeks, but i was really stressed with my exams and stuff! But now i have holidays so i might write a few more chapters in the next two weeks ;)  
> I hope i got a hang on the angst and anger in this chapter, its my first try at writing emotions and stuff like that!


	6. the fight

Draco was walking along the hallway on the ground floor. His steps slowed down when he arrived at one of the big windows to look out at the courtyard. Thick, heavy snow was lying on the ground, on the benches, and on the few trees.

A big snowflake landed on his nose and melted. Even though Draco was dressed warmly enough he could still feel the cold through his clothes. But he didn’t bother to cast a warming spell, the cold was more of a comfort than anything. More than anything else did at the moment. Though he was sure it would come back soon. As soon as the Slytherins saw that Draco was treating Potter normally again. As soon as he had rebuilt everything his father had taught him. Then all the bitterness he felt right now would go away again.

Right?

He pushed those ugly thoughts down. He trusted Pansy. And she had already been right once; It had felt thrilling to put Potter into his place again, it had felt familiar and safe and all the confusion he had felt before had vanished. All the unfamiliar and intolerable feelings had fallen away when he saw the look of betrayal on Potters face. He had soaked the anger and hostility in his eyes up like a sponge.

He smirked bitterly to himself at the memory and let his hand trail along the stone railing.

Though, it felt like a shame that he couldn’t ‘help’ Potter with the Golden Egg now. Although that hadn’t been his original intention, it was still a wasted opportunity... Maybe he could’ve intentionally messed something up and let the golden boy die during the second task. It would have been the perfect plan. But he had been too impatient, he guessed.

He would have to speak with Pansy about it. Maybe there could be something done after all, with the prefect’s bathroom. Maybe lay a trap? Well- Pansy would know. He was bewildered at the fact that he hadn’t told her about it right away…

He shook his head and took his hand away from the railing and started to walk in the direction he came from, back towards the Slytherin dungeon.

But he had only reached the adjoining window when a fist collided with his stomach, and Draco collapsed in pain.

He looked up with big eyes, gaping where the punch had come from. Draco was sure that no-one had been there earlier. But in front of his arched down form stood Potter, his lips pressed together into a thin line and hands clenched at his side, trembling with rage. Draco’s heart sunk to his boots, and sudden fear overtook him.

He’d fucked up.

“Since when do you attack without a warning Potter? Did losing your half-breed pal make you lose your mind?” He tried to stop his voice from shaking and hid his fear behind his mocking tone. That was just normal Potter, nothing else, nothing to be afraid of. He could deal with him with a few cruel words, as always.

“You’re right, that more like a you-thing to do. Being a back-stabbing traitor I mean.” Draco was shocked by the lack of emotion in Potter’s voice.

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?” he asked, perplexed. He wasn’t being treacherous. Not at all. Right? He was just being loyal to his friends. _‘His friends? Were they even his friends?’_

But Potter didn’t answer and took a few more steps towards Draco. He remembered that he was still hunching on the floor and straightened up. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Potter’s fist tremble even more than before, but he didn't pay much attention to it, too focused on returning Potter’s stare and reaching for his wand. 

“What’s your problem, Potter? Did you really lose your mind? Oh, how the wizarding world would react to something like that... I can already see your new _title_ before my eyes; ‘The Boy-Who-Lived-To-Eventually-Go-Crazy’” He snickered at his own words, but Potter didn’t even seem to hear them. He was staring right through Draco, and his next words didn't feel like they were addressed to him, more like Potter was speaking to himself. 

“I thought we were friends, Malfoy.” he heard Potter mutter under his breath, pain now obvious in his voice.

After hearing those words, some part of Draco wanted to rejoice at finally getting his revenge for the rejection in First Year, but he found that he didn't feel any glee.

All that he felt was his heart break.

The confusion he had felt just moments before fell away and he suddenly knew with a strange clarity that all he ever wanted was a friendship with Potter And now he’d **lost it.** He’d blown the only chance he would ever have to be Potter’s friend. And it hurt. It hurt, it hurt it hurt, more than anything ever did in his life before. He barely even felt it when Potter grabbed him at his collar and shoved him harshly into the wall and he hardly heard it when Potter began to yell at him, everything was engulfed with pain.

His stomach gave a hard throb and Draco wanted to cry. But shove that sadness somewhere deep, deep down, and replace it with anger. Malfoy's can never show his weakness. It had been instilled into him since birth and he clung to it. He put on a fake smirk and finally remembered he had been grabbing for his wand a minute ago and seized it, ready to curse Potter into obliviation.

But then Potters words finally reached his ears, and his unsteady smirk fell from his face.

“… I THOUGHT THAT WE FINALLY GOT ALONG. THAT YOU HAD CHANGED FROM BEFORE. AND LIKE THE STUPID IDIOT I AM I FORGAVE YOU. FORGAVE YOU FOR ALL THE TIMES YOU CALLED HERMIONE A MUDBLOOD. FORGAVE YOU FOR ALL THE TROUBLE YOU PUT ME THROUGH. **I THOUGHT THAT DANCE HAD CHANGED SOMETHING BETWEEN US!!”** Potter was yelling at him at the end, voice shaking with emotion, and the part of Draco that wasn't frozen marveled that no one had found them yet.

His hand sank down to his side, every thought of cursing Potter forgotten, and he lowered his head as the sadness from before resurfaced unwillingly. And this time he could do nothing to stop it.

"Why would anything have changed," he said quietly "I’m still the same person, you know. People don’t change that fast, especially you should know that being the stubborn git you are.” He was almost whispering the last part, not sure if Potter even heard it. A sad smile took over his wobbly smirk from before and he gave up trying to suppress the sadness again.

Maybe Pansy hadn’t been right after all, because even though he felt all that sadness and pain, he finally felt at ease again, for the first time in the last week. Realizing that, a terrifying thought struck him.

Maybe all the confusion and all the unfamiliar feelings he had felt while spending time with Potter had been feelings of security. _Feelings of belonging._

Because he had never had _friends_ before. Not really. They were just hanging around him for his power, for his status. They didn’t know anything personal about each other, not like the way he imagined friends would do. They were just tolerating each other’s presence. He had thought that to be normal before. That he didn’t need anything else. But now he realized he had been longing for the sort of friendship Potter had with the _Mudbl-_ Muggle-born and the Weasel. He had been _jealous of them_.

He then understood with certainty that he didn’t want to go back to before. To hating Potter. To tormenting him and his friends. So he mustered all his courage and began to speak. Maybe it wasn’t too late, maybe he could still save this. Whatever _this_ was. 

“Potter?” he said and looked up again into his face. He saw the furious look on Potter’s face and gulped. He really fucked up, didn’t he?

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m sorry. I made a mistake. A terrible mistake. And- I know you probably won’t forgive me again, and that okay. I’m actually kind of clueless of what to do right now,” He looked sheepishly down at his shoes at the last part. “But if you gave me the opportunity, I wouldn’t let you down again. I promise. I realize what kind of mistake I made. And-“ he wanted to add more, to apologize again and do **more** , but in that second he heard a door bang open, and all of his courage left him.

Professor Flitwick stomped out of his office towards where they were standing. He glared at them, grumbling something about yelling, and, with a disappointed look to Potter, sent them both off to their headmasters.

Draco didn't see Potter again that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! i hope you liked that chapter! It's my first attempt at writing angst, so like always, criticism welcome.  
> I just hope its not too cringe!


	7. Chapter 7

Potter was ignoring him again. Or, still, he should say.

Draco had been staring at him for most of the morning, during all the classes Gryffindor and Slytherin shared. But that git hasn’t looked at him once. Not even when he’d messed up his potion and Snape rebuked him, because he had been too goddamn focused on staring at Potter.

This was getting ridiculous. And way too nerve-wracking.

Normally he could attract Potters attention by simply looking at him the wrong way. It had always been far too easy to provoke him. Well- emphasis on _had been._

He was at his mental limits. Every time he tried to concentrate on lessons his gaze shifted to Potter. Hell, even in the classes they didn’t share he couldn’t focus on anything else but Potter.

Charms was the worst though. Flitwick had been staring at both of them the whole time and Draco was praying in his head that the teacher would stop drawing any more attention to him, he couldn't use it _at all_ at the moment, because his little speech this morning had made the Slytherins had been absolutely furious with him...

He had staggered from Snape's office yesterday evening, still shaken from the fight with Potter and Snape's questions, and laid down on his bed and waited for sleep to come. But he found that he couldn’t calm down. He turned over on the bed, his mind racing at a million miles an hour and he was sweating, although he had long since thrown off his blanket.

As he lay there, arms and legs sprawled, staring up at the ceiling, he thought about everything he had experienced that day. Everything he had become aware of. And then he realized that a simple apology to Potter would not suffice. He couldn't just wait for Potter to forgive him again. Not this time, he knew. This time he would not simply be forgiven. _He had to earn Potters forgiveness._

So when he had stood up in the morning and walked out of the dorm into the common room and had seen Pansy there, among the other Slytherins, and walked towards her.

“Pansy”

"Yes, Draco dear?" She said with her annoying high-pitched voice and turned to him questioningly.

“I had a fight with Potter yesterday. And I found out that you were wrong. Fighting him is not the right solution. I will have to try something else.”

“You’ve found another one of his weak points?!” She asked, thrilled. “Are we going to try to-“

"No," he interrupted her, and allowed his anger to seep through, “ ** _We_** aren’t going to try anything. In fact, we’re not going to try anything ever again. I’m going to try to become his friend, Pansy. For real this time. And that means we probably won't be able to stay friends." He’d turned away from her and the others and walked out of the common room, trying to get out of there before hell eventually broke loose.

So that’s how he found himself alone at lunch, with what was probably the _whole school_ staring at him.

He hoped that he wouldn’t be alone forever though. He knew that he probably still had some friends left, like Blaise, even if they were fighting at the moment. And he assumed that Crabbe and Goyle would have his side too since they were probably too thick to get what was going on anyway. Maybe with time, he could even rebuild his reputation… But he doubted that when he was friends with Potter, any of the Slytherins would still be on his side.

 _‘If you are friends with Potter, not when.’_ his treacherous mind whispered. _‘there’s no guarantee he would be friends with you again. What if you just ruined your whole life for_ ** _absolutely nothing_** _, huh? What then? Will you live the next three years alone, without any friends on your side?’_ He shook those thoughts away.

Potter would give him a chance. He had to.

* * *

“Wha’ do you think he’s sittin’ alone for?” Ron asked with his mouth full of food. Hermione rolled his eyes and continued eating. Harry was bluntly ignoring both of them and their conversation about Malfoy. Well, he tried to, anyway.

“I heard some people say that he got into a fight with Parkinson this morning,” Seamus answered Ron’s question.

“What? What the bloody hell for? Slytherins don’t fight publicly, like, never.” Ron asked, after gulping down a sip of Pumpkin Juice and looked baffled at Seamus.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know mate. That’s all I know.”

"So _I_ heard it’s got something to do with Harry." Neville chimed in from next to Harry, who froze at this. It was too late to pretend he hadn’t listened in.

“With Harry??” Ron looked at Dean flabbergasted and then turned to Harry, trying to find out if Harry knew anything about this. But Harry just continued to shove his food around with his fork, trying to appear nonchalant. He really didn’t know what he had to do with anything.

Dean broke into the confusion. “What rubbish, _I_ heard their fight was about some other girl! Wouldn’t be a surprise if you ask me.”

Their conversations continued, but Harry blocked it out. For the first time the whole morning, he took a look in Draco’s direction and found him sitting there, his chin resting on his head, looking at the food below him.

Right there, he looked so utterly defeated at that moment that Harry couldn’t stop the guilt that welled up inside of him. He had been ignoring him for the whole morning, the anger inside of him not dimming down, especially every time he reminded of the obvious fake apology Malfoy had uttered. He had been surprised at what a good liar Malfoy was.

But now he wasn’t so sure anymore.

What if he had meant it? What if his apology had been genuine and he really wanted to be Harry’s frien-

No. Harry shoved those thoughts down. This could still be an elaborate act to screw with him.

 _'Can it really?'_ whispered a voice in the back of his head.

‘Well, it wouldn’t hurt to make sure which one it was’ he thought with a hopeful grin and stood up to follow Malfoy when he left the hall.

* * *

Potter caught Draco in the corridor. Well, more like he stumbled onto him, really, because before Draco knew, he had crashed into someone and found himself on the floor.

“Goddamn it, can’t you look-“ he broke up, frozen when he saw who he crashed into. For a moment all the memories of their dance welled up again because that situation was all too similar to the first time they’d stumbled into each other, at that blasted evening. He grimaced at those memories. ‘ _It had been a mistake’,_ he thought. ‘ _Rising up to that challenge’._ Because if he hadn’t done that, this wouldn’t be happening right now. This _confusion_ and the longing to be Potters friend. Goddamnit, if he hadn’t done that, _everything_ would be going on normally. He would be hexing Potter instead of stressing out about him or teaching the oaf _Potions of all things_. He would be sitting ignorantly with all his 'friends' up at the table in the great hall, enjoying it and not lying on the cold floor in a corridor.

Oh yeah, he was still on the floor.

He swiftly stood up and wiped the dust off his robes. Potter did the same, though a bit clumsier and without the dust wiping part. He put on his glasses again and his eyes widened at the realization of whom exactly he had crashed into. Once again, very déjà vu like.

Draco decided to speak up first. “You’re still as clumsy as ever, aren’t you? Haven’t you learned how many bad consequences can come out of crashing into somebody?”

“Bad consequences? Like hurting yourself? Can’t say that this little crash hurt me much right now. Nothing beats my fight against a dragon this year.” He chuckled “If it’s that what you mean?” Potter added, dumbstruck. Malfoy glowered at him for his stupidity.

Then realization dawned on Potters face. “What, you mean dancing with you??” Draco cringed at the word. “Malfoy, that’s not something I would regret. Not even if I was hexed because of it. And, so far, you haven’t done that, so I’m not complaining.” He grinned at Draco.

“You know, I really am sorry. For what I did in the last week.” Draco said, lowering his head again. He couldn’t bear to look at Potter right now. He realized that that wouldn’t be enough and added “I was only doing what Pansy told me to be honest. I was so confused and angry with myself that I let myself be influenced by her. I know that isn’t an excuse at all, but it’s the truth and I think you deserve to know the truth Potter.” he realized he was rambling and shut his mouth, waiting fearfully for Potter's response.

“You're forgiven. Well, forgive is a bad word, because I still think you did wrong things in the past and I really was a bit quick to forgive you about those.” Draco looked up and saw Potter grimacing. “And you still need to apologize to Hagrid for the whole thing." he paused, "But, to be fair, I acted sort of impulsive too, yesterday. Screaming at you and all that." he rubbed his neck, embarrassed look on his face, "So I kinda know how you feel. It'd be easy to follow someone's lead when you're most vulnerable,” he said and glanced over at Draco who was still standing there, dumbstruck.

Then a laugh escaped him, and he felt so _immensely relieved_. He couldn't believe that Potter would forgive him so quickly! And so easily! More laughs followed and soon he was standing there, clutching his stomach. He wiped away the tears that had welled up in the corners of his eyes and looked up at Potter, who was staring at him in exasperation. Draco realized that he probably thought he was laughing at _him_ right now, and quickly straightened up to rectify his mistake.

"Sorry, I just didn't expect that at all." he paused and added, "sometimes you say the wisest things, Potter."

Then Potter grinned and did the least thing Draco expected at that moment; he held out his hand to him.

“Call me Harry?”

Draco stared at the hand for a long moment, lost for words.

He had been waiting for this very moment for the last four years, ever since Potter had refused his offer of friendship in the first year. Since then, he had tried to repay him and had never succeeded.

But it wasn’t a moment of triumph or revenge like he had always imagined it would be.

It was one of friendship.

He took Potter, no **Harry** ’s hand at last, and said, “Call me Draco.”

And when Harry smiled at him, he smiled back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I really enjoyed writing this fanfic, and i hope you enjoyed reading it as much too!
> 
> As always please leave Kudos or a comment if you enjoyed, im still looking for feedback!!!
> 
> This point would be a good point to end this fic, as i think this is quite a good ending. But since we actually havent come to the drarry part yet, i thought i might continue this fic for a bit longer! We still have a lot to lot to look forward to! (aka. Draco actually helping Harry with the Golden Egg, the second task and so on and so on) :))
> 
> So, see you here soon!


	8. The Golden Egg

Harry meandered purposefully between the tables of the library, his eyes fixed on his destination: Draco Malfoy, who was sitting in the far corner of the library, engrossed in a textbook, probably Potions if Harry had to guess.

Sighing, he marked it down as another thing on his ever-growing to-do list and concentrated on more pressing matters, like the looming risk of death if he couldn't figure out the Golden Egg anytime soon. That was actually why he’d been searching for Draco.

Ever since he, Ron, and Hermione had visited Hagrid last week, the things Hagrid had said had been gnawing at his conscience. He had looked so happy and wistful when he told Harry how much he wanted him to win the tournament and his proud smile when Harry lied that he had already figured out the second task had made him wince with guilt.

Silently, Harry sat down on the chair opposite Draco and immediately sagged into himself, dead tired from the last few days.

“Evening, Harry,” Draco said, not looking up from his book, “I hope you have a reason to interrupt my studying”

“Evenin’. And yeah, I do, actually- Wait, is a Herbology book? I thought Sprout didn’t give us any homework over the weekend?!” Harry asked, horrified at the thought of even more homework.

“Calm down, you haven’t missed anything. Unlike some, I simply like to educate myself in my free time.” Here, he finally looked up to give Harry a criticizing look.

 _“You and Hermione'd be great friends then,"_ Harry mumbled under his breath.

“What? Did you say something?”

“Oh nothing,” he said quickly. “I came here to ask if you still wanted to help me with the Golden Egg. You know, the thing we talked about a few weeks ago?”

“You still haven’t figured it out?? What the hell have you lot been doing all this time?” he shot Harry another disapproving look. “I guess I'll have to help you out then, won't I? You still have to sneak into the prefects' bathroom, don't you? I guess we will have to go at night then."

Harry smiled to himself. Draco had immediately leaped up to offer his help, even if it was behind a facade of compassion, and Harry was glad for it.

“Brilliant. Meet me at the entrance hall at midnight. …Ah, and make sure you don’t get caught waiting.”

“Wait, What about you? And how’re we going to get to the fifth floor undetected?” Draco closed the book and looked at Harry intrigued.

“I guess you’ll have to wait and find out, huh?” he said, stood up and winked at him. Draco rolled his eyes and opened his book again, not even waiting for Harry to leave.

Harry smiled exasperatedly once again and turned away to leave.

* * *

The entrance hall was empty and dark when Harry arrived there. That is, except for the bright spot of hair that stood out in the corner. Well, not everyone could have an invisibility cloak to hide under.

Harry looked at the boy leaning there against the wall, his eyes darting excitedly around the room, and though he might play a little trick on him.

He sneaked on his right side, careful to not make noises that would give him away, and then swiftly removed his cloak.

“Hi, Draco,” he said and cringed internally. Calling him Draco was still something he would have to get used to.

Harry marveled at how Draco jumped up away from the wall, startled. “Fucking hell Potter, where did you come from??”

Harry just grinned and put on his cloak again.

“An invisibility cloak? Those are kind of rare, aren’t they?” he took a piece of cloth between his fingers and inspected it, “…and it’s very well made too. Perfect for sneaking around, I would guess…”

And then realization hit him, and he looked at Harry exasperated “That was you in third year!! The ghost that terrorized me, Crabbe and Goyle!”

“Well I think terrorized is a bit overexaggerated. I was merely throwing a few snowballs in your face. And well- I suppose I was dragging you a bit in the snow too.” Harry smiled at the memory.

“Oh no! Don’t you dare smile fondly Potter!” he said, but he was smiling too. “Well, I guess I was a bit of an ass back there, wasn’t I?” And before Harry could add anything to that he pointed towards the Marauders Map in Harry's hand and asked, “And what’s that?”

Harry didn’t answer his question directly but handed him the map instead.

“Is that- Hogwarts?? And those are-“ He looked up at Harry in wonder.

“The actual people, yeah.”

“That is crazy! Where did you always get those things from, Harry?” he asked him astonished.

Harry looked at him sheepishly, “Well, I got the map from Fred and Gorge…” Draco murmured something like ‘of course you did’ “…and the cloak was given to me in first year.”

Draco looked thoughtful for a second and then asked "So that's how we're going to get to the fifth floor unnoticed, huh? Are we both going to fit under the cloak?"

“Let’s find out, shall we?” Harry said and moved close to Draco and swung the cloak over them.

“Can you hold the Egg, Draco?” he asked, and without waiting for his response handed him the Golden Egg. It had been hard to navigate alone under this thing, with both the Egg and the Map in his hands.

Then they started to walk laboriously up the stairs, both crouching so that the cloak would cover their feet. Harry was concentrating on walking and checking the map at the same time but in the back of his mind, he realized how weird it felt to be so close to Draco. But pleasantly he found, when they fell naturally into pace, both moving like the other without discussing beforehand. It probably just felt weird because they had never been this close outside of their fights. And the dance of course. Of course, that bloody dance was the exception.

Even though they were moving incredibly slowly, they eventually arrived on the fifth floor and stood before the door to the Prefects Bathroom. Harry muttered the password ‘Pine-fresh’ just like Cedric had told him to.

They slipped inside when the door opened, and Harry pulled the cloak off them. They both stood there in astonishment for a few seconds at the sight of the bathroom.

Everything was made of white marble and the whole room was flooded with a golden light. Harry took a few steps forward and inspected the golden taps that stood all around the big pool and swiftly opened them all.

He looked back up to see Draco pulling off his nightgown, who then turned around too and smirked when he saw Harry looking at him.

“I know I’m a sight for sore eyes, Potter, but hurry up. Didn’t Diggory say you would have to take a bath with the egg? So go on, let’s take that bath.”

Harry took off his Pyjamas too, though leaving his underwear on when he saw that Draco did the same. Then he grabbed himself a towel and jumped into the water. Out of the taps, he had opened were streaming out all kinds of bubbles, all merging together in the middle of the pool. Harry was mesmerized by the little dance the bubbles were making and didn’t notice Draco sliding into the water next to him.

“What did Diggory say you would have to do now, Harry?”

He startled and broke his gaze away from the bubbles to look at Draco. “Well, nothing much. Just that I would have to take a bath with the egg.”

"That's it?? I sure hope he wasn't messing with you." Draco sounded thoughtful.

Sudden doubts filled Harry’s mind too, so he said nothing to that and instead reached around to grab the Egg he had put down next to the edge of the pool to hold it out before him. He stared at it for a moment, then sighed and opened it. Immediately the familiar screeching filled the bathroom, echoing and reverberating off the marble walls. Cringing, Harry swiftly closed it again. Nothing new had come of it this.

“God Potter,” Draco groaned from next to him, his hands on his ears. “I’ve heard enough stories about this damned Egg and had wanted to leave it at that, thank you very much. Why did you even open it in the first place?!”

“I thought maybe something new would happen now that I open it in a bathroom. Though in hindsight, that was a bit stupid, wasn’t it?”

He heard Draco mumble something that sounded suspiciously like “not just a bit” next to him but ignored it.

At loss, Harry sat down the Egg again and started to swim a little bit in the pool. Standing around there had begun to feel a bit uncomfortable since the pool was barely deep enough for his feet to reach the bottom. He felt far more at ease when he was moving, and floating between the bubbles felt quite comfortably.

“Lazing around now, are we?” Draco asked from his spot at the edge of the pool.

"Yeah, because I don't usually get the chance to swim around in such a brilliant pool. Besides, I'm clueless right now, so we might as well enjoy the bath, don't you think?" Then Harry suddenly had a flash of genius, and he shot a grin at an unsuspecting Draco before diving under the bubbles.

He swam forward towards him and splashed a full load of water in his face. Draco sputtered for a moment and then his merciless grin was the last thing Harry saw before he was dunked underwater and they both plunged into a ruthless fight. Bubbles flew everywhere, even into Harry's mouth as they splashed each other with water, and when he tried to pull Draco under the water, he felt a few bruises forming where Draco's foot hit him. Not that he minded. Draco had taken a few hits from him too.

Then suddenly, giggles interrupted their fight and they both paused to look at Myrtle sitting on one of the taps.

“I decide to visit the bathroom for once and there I see not only one, but two unexpected guests! I guess you two are here for the Egg, right?” She giggled and pointed at the Golden Egg.

“Wait, who is she?” Draco looked baffled at Harry and Myrtle pouted.

“She’s one of the ghosts of Hogwarts, Myrtle. She haunts the second-floor girls’ bathroom.”

“Ah yeah, the place where I was brutally murdered… “ She rested her chin on her hand and sulked, “When will you visit me again there Harry? You haven’t been there in _ages_!”

“Ah, well yes, I shouldn’t actually be there right? It’s the girls’ bathroom after all…”

Draco sensed the upcoming argument and intervened, “You wouldn’t want to get Harry in trouble, right?” Harry turned to him, relieved.

“Yes well, I suppose that’s true…” She looked away sadly "Yes well, I suppose that's true..." She turned away mournfully, but then looked at Draco in wonder as if she hadn't noticed him before, “And who would you be?”

“That’s Draco Malfoy, Myrtle. He’s-“ Harry looked at Draco perplexed, not knowing what to say next.

“I’m a fourth-year Slytherin. Harry’s enemy turned friend.” He said with a smirk in Harry’s direction.

“An enemy?! But you guys seem almost like childhood sweethearts!” Myrtle said surprised and Harry and Draco shared a confused look.

Harry cleared his throat and steered the subject away from them. “Anyways, Myrtle, you wouldn’t know what we have to do with that Egg, would you?”

“Well yes of course!” she bats her eyelashes innocently, “You would just have to lay it into the water, just like that Cedric boy did.”

Harry thought it was well worth a try and swam to the edge to get the Golden Egg and opened it. As it sank under the water, the previously horrible screaming turned into a mysterious chant.

Harry and Draco both dived underwater and they listened to the almost hypnotizing singing until they both run out of air. Gasping, they returned to the water surface.

“People who can use their voices under the water… some sort of underwater creatures maybe?” Harry guessed and looked at Myrtle expectantly, who just giggled again.

“Merpeople perhaps?” Draco mused and Myrtle gasped in astonishment.

“You guys are good! Cedric had sat there for hours and hours, talking to himself until _all_ the bubbles were gone” she looked almost a bit sad at that.

Harry, however, hadn’t heard a thing she said.

"How am I supposed to survive _a whole hour_ underwater??" he asked with a despairing note.

But Draco just patted him onto the shoulder. “That’s what we’re going to find out, Harry. We have enough time, so between me and …Granger, we're going to figure it out, okay?”

Harry just nodded and they both got out of the bad and bit Myrtle goodnight. Harry swung the cloak over them again as soon as they were dressed and accompanied Draco into the dungeon, where he left soon after and climbed unconsciously all the way up into his dorm, too distraught to notice anything out of the usual.

And when Harry finally fell onto his bed, he dreamt of screaming mermaids dragging him to his death in the depths of the great lake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, i hope you liked this new chapter! I'm finally writing a bit faster, and i think the MANY conversations in this chapter helped a lot. I really liked writing their interactions tho, so i hope you guys don't mind!
> 
> As always, i would be grateful for some feedback, may it be negative or positive, since i haven't gotten that many comments!


	9. Chapter 9

Draco was watching Harry suffer from afar.

He and his friends had been occupying the table for days on end, practically living there at one point, frantically searching for a remedy to survive underwater for a whole hour.

Draco had been doing his research too, of course, but he was hesitant to join their group. Harry alone would’ve been fine, more than fine even, but sitting there with the Weasel and Granger too, and being stared at the whole time? No thanks.

None of his books about Potions had proven helpful so far, so he had resigned himself for today and read a bit more in the Herbology textbook he was reading at the moment. He would continue tomorrow, maybe he should start looking through the Transfiguration books, even if McGonagall hadn’t covered human transfiguration in her class yet. But for today he was finished.

He slumped down in his seat and tried to himself comfortable in the hard wooden chair. Nothing beat the cozy Slytherin lounge, but he couldn't exactly go to the common room to study a book that would help _Harry Potter_. He didn't want to picture what they would come up with if he infuriated them any more than he already had, and he didn’t want to risk any of it, not for something as unnecessary as sitting on a couch.

He flicked thoughtlessly through the pages, most of which were already familiar to him.

He had started to study Herbology as a precaution since it would be helpful for him to know how to care for the plants he would later use in potions. It would help him if he wanted to grow his own potion ingredients later on, as many potions masters did.

But since then studying Herbology had become something he enjoyed, nearly as much as he enjoyed brewing potions.

He skimmed the pages briskly, only partly concentrating on the texts, the other part still worrying about Harry and his task, when he came across a page he hadn’t read before.

He skimmed it curiously, fascinated by the beautiful illustration of a fish displayed on the page. He looked over to the next page, which explained how the gills of a fish worked, how they changed from species to species, and what plant would help if the gill wasn’t working properly. The page was concluded with a plant that enables humans and human-like creatures to grow their own gills for a certain period of time; _Gillyweed_. Draco froze. Gills let fish breathe underwater, right? And if this plant allows humans to grow gills, they too would be able to breathe underwater. He shot out of his seat and stumbled towards the table Harry and his friends were sitting at, clutching the book firmly in his hands.

"Harry! Harry, look what I found!" He planted the book on Harry’s table on top of the other textbook Harry had been currently reading.

“I… I think I just found the solution!” he exclaimed, and as soon as he said that he was pushed aside by an ecstatic Granger. He yelped and glared at her angrily, but she didn't even seem to notice, so engrossed she was on the page. Weasley joined the two too, albeit a bit more relieved than actually interested.

“Yes, Harry, I think it should work!” Granger cried out and Harry did the unbelievable: he sprung up and turned to hug Draco. _To_ ** _hug_** _him. Him! Malfoys don’t simply_ ** _hug_ ** _!’_

Draco yelped and tried to push Harry away, who then, both arms still firmly around Draco's torso, looked up at him with wide eyes. His body involuntary froze up and Draco had to give up any attempt to push Harry away. It would have been no good anyway, as the boy was apparently made out of pure strength. Instead, he tried something different.

“Are you quite finished, Potter?” he asked the boy, a smirk on his face. “As much as I am enjoying this, I think you have more pressing matters to think about.” At that, he nodded towards the pair that was still standing there at the table, speechless.

Harry then seemed to remember where he was and who exactly he had been hugging and, to Draco’s great relief, released his grip and stepped away.

“Sorry ‘bout that. I was just so relieved and I…” he trailed off and turned sheepishly to his two staring friends. He cleared his throat and spoke up.

“So, where are we gonna get this Gillyweed from? Should we ask Madam Sprout about it?” Harry asked

“No Harry, I don't think Madam Sprout has such a special plant in her greenhouse,” Granger said thoughtfully.

“I think Snape would have these kinds of things in his personal storeroom…” Draco muttered and when he saw the questioning looks of the others, clarified; “It’s a room where he stores all his private potion ingredients in. It’s quite amazing how many there are actually” They seemed to think about that for a second, and the hitherto silent Weasley began to speak.

“So, how should we get a plant out of Snape's _personal storeroom_?! Steal them?” he exclaimed. Harry already looked like he was hatching a whole plan in his head on how to get past all the precautions Snape had probably taken to protect the room. Granger on the other hand seemed to be planning how to stop those two from doing anything stupid, or how to save them from Snape's wrath if he discovered them.

“You could just simply ask him, you know?” Draco said, shaking his head in amused exasperation.

"Ask him??" Ron exclaimed, "Are you crazy, Malfoy? There's no way he'd just give us some private potion ingredients. Besides, that would only give us away if we then had to steal them!" Harry put a hand on his shoulder, but Draco couldn’t tell if it was meant to be a warning or a reassurance.

“Sure, if you would ask him, he would just say no out of spite. But if I’m here…” he smirked mischievously at them, “I’m sure we can convince him somehow.”

"Well, if you're sure, Malfoy, then I think it's worth the risk," Granger said calmly, seemingly grateful that she wouldn't have to save them from Snape's ire after all, and Draco stared at her, surprised.

Harry just stood there and smiled fondly at them for a moment and then turned to tidy up the pile of books, relief from before still clear on his face.

* * *

Harry thought Draco looked way too gleeful when Snape handed them the jar of Gillyweed, who seemed a bit miffed about the whole thing.

“Just to remind you, Mister Potter,” Snape said as he climbed down the ladder again, “I am only doing this because Dumbledore advised us teachers to support the champions if they require any assistance with the second task. Not out of any _personal_ reasons” he glanced at Draco. “I have to say though, it’s surprising to see you of all people associate with people like them, Mister Malfoy” he added and scowled at Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Snape shooed them out of the storeroom again, closed the door, and locked it. Harry swore he could hear him mutter incarnations under his breath. It was a good thing that they didn’t try to break in into this room, Harry thought.

Draco ignored Snape's remark and turned to leave but Snape wasn’t finished yet.

“Do not take this, _rather unfortunate event_ ” his lip curled ”as an invitation to keep on _stealing_ any more ingredients from my personal storeroom, Mister Potter. I will catch you eventually, rest assured.” He locked eyes with Harry's and glared at him venomously.

“What do you mean, Professor?” Hermione said, alarmed.

“ _I mean_ ,” he said mockingly “that someone has been stealing ingredients for a Polyjuice potion from me. _Sounds familiar, doesn’t it_? Whatever you are up to now, steal any more from me and you will regret it.”

“We haven’t been stealing anything!” Harry proclaimed exasperated

“And you think I would believe an **obvious lie** like that?” His right eye twitched.

“We haven’t been brewing any Polyjuice Potion, Professor Snape!” Hermione exclaimed and added “…well, not anymore at least” sheepishly when Snape glared at her.

He stared at them for a second, trying to figure out whether or not they were lying, and then eventually turned to Draco who was standing a few meters away.

“Can you… second this _nonsense,_ Mister Malfoy?” Snape asked and Harry saw Ron visibly tense up.

Draco shot Harry an uncertain glance but responded anyway: “Yes, Professor, I haven’t seen any of them brew Polyjuice potion.”

“Very well… I will look into this some more,” he said, and they all slumped in relief, but then he turned around again and eyed them warningly. “If I find out it had been you, after all, nothing good would await you, rest assured” They held his glare fiercely.

Then he turned around pointly and walked away from them, his coat flapping behind him.

* * *

He, Ron, and Hermione walked up the stairs towards the Gryffindor dorm. Harry looked down at the jar clutched between his hands. He still couldn't believe that they had found a plant that allowed you to breathe underwater. It had been such a relief when Draco had shown them the solution for the second task and Harry just had not been able to help himself and _hugged him._

 _Fucking hell, he hugged_ **_Draco Malfoy!! Willingly!!_ **

_'But not on purpose! I was just caught up in thrill! ...that's why it had felt so brilliant too!'_ , he tried to convince himself, but the blood rushing to his cheeks betrayed him.

Then Ron muttered something, and fortunately, Harry’s thoughts were interrupted. “I hadn’t expected that at all today…”

“What're you talking about?” Harry asked

“Y’know the thing Malfoy did today.” Ron spoke up, “I mean, first he shows us the solution for the second task,” he pointed to the Gillyweed-jar in Harry's arms, “Then he offers to help us with Snape, and then he actually covers for us!! I was so sure he would rat us out, that bloody git” Ron looked sheepishly down at his feet.

“I thought so too…” Hermione said thoughtfully and laid a hand on Ron’s shoulder.

“I told you he wasn't the same prick he used to be. You just had to see it with your own eyes, right?” Harry grinned at them.

“Yeah, he really changed, huh?” Ron said, rubbing his neck, and smiled at Harry.

“Well, let's say he helped us a lot in the last few days.” Hermione said thoughtfully and added, "I'll ask him if I can borrow the book he showed us today." Harry sighed. She had been taking the lack of information during their search in the library as a personal offense, and she was determined to catch up on all the knowledge she missed.

Harry was just glad his friends were finally seeing the small changes in Draco, and smiled fondly when he stepped inside the Gryffindor common room behind them

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> I hope im not rushing too fast into their friendship (and the romance between Harry and Draco)! I really have no experience with writing this type of fic! I hope you dont get bored too ;)! i feel ike a fast relationship is just really unrealistic between those too, so im taking my time to FULLY embrace the slow burn :)))
> 
> As always, i would be VERY thankful for some feedback! see you next time!


	10. the second task

The next morning, they were back in the library, sitting at their now-established little table, and Harry and Ron sighed in exasperation when Hermione returned from the shelves with an armful of books. Ron caught Malfoy looking at them amusedly from the table next to them.

“Do we really have to read _all_ of these books?? I thought we were good to go with the Gillyweed!” Ron exclaimed.

“Don’t be stupid,” Hermione said bluntly. “We still have to figure out what the rest of the Egg’s clue means. And if Harry has to fight in the lake, he needs to learn some spells too.” She turned to Harry, “Can you recite the song one more time? I forgot to write it down.”

“Er- let me think for a second” Harry said, trying to remember the text he memorized in the bathroom.

“’ _Come seek us where our voices sound,_  
 _We cannot sing above the ground,_  
 _And while you're searching ponder this;_  
 _We've taken what you'll sorely miss,_  
 _An hour-long you'll have to look,_  
 _And to recover what we took,_  
 _But past an hour, the prospect's black,_  
 _Too late, it's gone, it won't come back._ ’”

Hermione looked at the table thoughtfully. “’ We’ve taken what you’ll sorely miss…’ referring to what? An object of some sort?”

“Probably yeah,” Harry replied. “Maybe the invisibility cloak from my father?”

“Or the album and broom” Ron added. He knew the way Harry sometimes looked at his parents' photos, and he was sure that it was something just as important to him as his broom or the cloak.

“Not everything is about Quidditch and brooms, boys!” commented Hermione amusedly. “But yeah, let’s add that too.” She looked over at Harry “You’ll just have to reach it within an hour, or else they won’t give it back. And pay attention to what of your stuff is missing, maybe you’ll have to search for it… So then, we can go on to search for spells that work underwater,” she said and handed each of them a book. Ron groaned and opened it reluctantly. “…but there aren’t too many of that, so we won’t have to search for-“ Hermione went on talking when a voice from behind Ron interrupted her:

“Why are you all so sure that it’s an object?”

Ron turned towards the table next to them and scowled when he saw Malfoy looking at them, a nearly finished book open before him.

“I just mean, ‘something that you’ll miss’ doesn’t necessarily have to be a thing.” he pointed out calmly.

“Well, it _could be_ a person…” Hermione said thoughtfully, “but that isn’t very likely. I mean, would they really kidnap someone for the tournament?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them. It wouldn’t be the first time Dumbledore endangered his students, and probably won’t be the last” he sneered, and Hermione reluctantly agreed and nodded. But Harry wasn’t listening to them anymore.

“‘ _…Too late it’s gone, it won’t come back…’_ ” Harry recited the Golden Egg’s song under his breath and blanched, “But, that would mean that the person wouldn’t come back up again! They would die!! It can’t possibly be that.”

Hermione intervened to stop Harry from panicking, “No, calm down Harry! It won’t be a person. They can’t endanger the life of a bystander like that, that’s illeg-“

“Just like they did with Harry then?!” Ron interrupted her, “He didn’t bloody chose to participate in any of this too!! …Not like the other champions.” he shot Harry an apologizing look.

“It’s fine Ron.” Harry said, “And I know that they didn’t have a choice in that. They would have pulled me out of the tournament if they could.”

Malfoy cut in, "The Goblet of Fire prevents anyone from leaving the Tournament so they couldn't remove you from it even if they wanted to. Whoever threw your name in that thing publicly threatened your life, and the media knows that. So they're not going to risk any more attention, at least for this year. So, I think we can cross dying bystanders off the list of things to expect, don't you think?"

“What’s it about then? Just a thing after all?” Ron frowned at Malfoy

“No, I think it’s still possible that the passage is about a person, and that the song is just a bit… over-exaggerated.” He cringed

“So basically, it’s lying?” Harry asked, bemused.

Malfoy sighed and nodded.

“Isn’t that a bit far-fetched? I mean, why would it lie about something so important?” Ron looked at Malfoy skeptically.

“It isn’t actually.” Hermione said, “It sounds like something Dumbledore would do, distort the only informative source we have for a bit of tension and drama.” Harry snickered in the background, and Hermione went on, “So let’s not worry too much about that. We should concentrate on how you actually reach the thing, or person, without being murdered by the giant squid or the other creatures in the lake.”

Ron paled and muttered “Oh yeah, I forgot about that bloody squid…” under his breath. He saw Harry’s smile vanished again.

“What creatures even are in that stupid lake?” Hermione asked aloud and looked down at the stack of books on the table before them, puzzled.

“ _Well,_ according to _Hogwarts: a history_ , the grounds are a natural reserve for magical creatures which have difficulty existing in Muggle-inhabited areas. So, deriving from that, all sorts of creatures inhabit the lake, like Fossegrims, Grindylows, Rusalka, or Sirens. You should definitely learn to cast the Revulsion or the Stinging Jinx, as well as some others. Well, that was just a guess, we should definitely do some research on that though...” Malfoy stopped his rambling and looked up to see all three of them staring at him dumbstruck.

«Mate, did you just quote _Hogwarts: a history_?!” Ron exclaimed and broke the silence.

“Er- yeah? It’s quite the essential book when you live here… I’ve read it before I even came to Hogwarts.” Malfoy replied perplexed. “Although it’s actually quite biased, looking back on it. It skipped over a lot of the more unsavory information about Hogwarts! …It’s still a good source for information though.” He added thoughtfully, and Harry sighed and prepared himself for the oncoming chaos.

Hermione stood up with the sound of a screeching stool, shot from their table to Malfoy’s, and cried out an “I KNOW RIGHT??!” followed by incoherent rambling. Ron didn’t think Malfoy was understanding a single thing she was saying judging by the look on his face. He leaned away from his seat to get some distance between himself and Hermione and shot Harry a helpless look, to which Harry shook his head bemusedly and even Ron couldn’t help but snicker at that. Maybe Harry had been right.

Maybe even someone like Malfoy could better himself. 

* * *

They did some more research after that, just like Draco suggested. Harry had wanted to immediately start with learning new defensive spells, but he supposed Hermione and Draco were right when they said he had to know _what exactly_ he was defending against.

So instead, they were searching for ancient creatures that _might_ live in the lake. Well, rather Hermione and Draco were searching. He and Ron were flipping through the books and skimming the pages that looked important.

Harry sunk down on the book before him and leaned on it in a way that would probably get him kicked out of the library by Madam Pince. He turned his head around to look at Draco, who was still sitting at the table next to them. He had just finished reading the last few pages when Harry had turned and looked up, smirking when he saw Harry looking up from him with his head on the book.

“That doesn’t seem like a very efficient way to read a book, Potter”

“It _does_ seem like a very comfortable way to sleep in though” Harry shot back and grinned.

Draco looked at him doubtfully. “ _That_ should be a comfortable way to sleep in?”

“Those idiots can sleep absolutely everywhere.” Hermione chimed in without looking up from her book. Draco visibly startled and glanced over to her, taken aback.

“I saw Harry read a book on the library floor once…“ he looked wary.

“Tell me something about it… that’s some of the better ones.” She looked up at Draco in exasperation. “I found him sleeping on the stone floor in front of the dying fireplace once. But, like, not sitting there, leaning against something. Literally _lying on the cold stone floor_ like it’s his bed!”

“Hey! That’s an unfair one! I’d been sitting there waiting on Sir- er… Snuffles.” He glanced over at Draco.

“That’s no valid excuse! You were sleeping there nonetheless! And if that’s not enough, I can talk about that one time you were dozing while sitting on the stairs, or when you were leaning against the wall outside of Potion’s while we were waiting! You’re literally like a cat, Harry!”

Ron paled and muttered something like ‘how could someone fall asleep waiting for doom’ and shook his head scandalized, like as if he wouldn’t be able to do the same, Harry thought.

They continued on reading, or in Harry’s case dozing off until Harry felt a finger prop his shoulder and looked up slowly.

“Would you mind sleeping on another book and giving me that one, Harry? I think it would be of way better use _read_ , not slept on.”

“Oh yeah, sure.” He handed him the book. “Wait, did you already read the other books?!” Half an hour ago Draco had come back from the shelves with a staple of books, challenging Hermione’s own.

"Well, someone has to save your ass when you go to sleep instead of working” He smacked down on Harry's head with his new book as if to prove a point, and Harry rubbed the stinging spot with his hand.

“Oh, Draco, since you're already standing, could you come here for a second? I have this book here that conflicts with another book, which one do you think is right?” She pointed her index fingers on the two different passages and looked expectantly at Draco, who stood stunned at both the name and the casual request. He walked slowly over to her, as if afraid, and leaned down to look at the books.

“Hm, in the book I’ve read before it says something completely different, Bunyips are supposed to live in swamps or waterholes, not rivers or lakes… wait I can show you the proof, let me get my book..." he hurried over to his table and purposefully reached for a certain book.

He got back to their table and stood next to Hermione, flipping through the pages of the book in his hands. Harry was observing it all from his point on the table, chin resting on his hand, and he nearly dozed off again when Draco slammed the book down in front of Hermione and pointed onto it.

Hermione skimmed it swiftly and looked at the front page of the book, probably checking the credibility of the author. Draco hovered next to her awkwardly for a few moments.

“It seems as plausible as all the other theories. We should just assume that each of them is correct, just to make sure.”

“But think about it logically! The Bunyips are told to bait their victims into areas like crowded forests where they wouldn’t find out again. Wouldn’t it make the most sense to live in swamps then?” Draco pointed out.

“It would make sense, yes.. though we can’t rule out the possibility that any of them would live in the Great Lake.”

Draco nodded and turned around towards his table again when Ron cleared his throat to get his attention.

"Er- I reckon you might as well sit here. Seems annoying to walk between tables all the time, you know?" he pointed towards the empty chair next to him and for the second time in the last few minutes, Draco froze up visibly and gawked at Ron incredulously. As did Harry, to be honest.

“Yes, that’s a very good idea Ron” Hermione shot up from her chair to pick up Draco’s books from his table and place them on theirs. Then she quickly turned to the still frozen Draco, took him by the arm, and pulled him to his new chair. At that moment, she looked every bit like a worrying mother hen.

"There, that's it." She sat down in her own chair and beside him and began talking to him again about the Bunyips, which seemed to snap Draco out of his trance. Soon the two were sitting side by side, reading the books, only occasionally pausing to point to a passage to the other and discuss it. Harry and Ron stared at them in bewilderment from across the table and got to their own reading again, although with reluctance.

* * *

Their days continued on like this, and between staying at the library and school Harry hardly found time for anything else. As the evening before the second task rolled around, he felt more prepared than for anything before in his life.

For once, they weren’t at the library, although they had dropped in for a second after dinner to see Draco sitting at his, or rather their, usual table and reading. Harry was amazed at how he could still read in his free time, after all the books they had gone through in the last two weeks.

It was something they did a lot now. Looking out for Draco. Although there was still tension between his friends, Harry thought they were finally starting to get along. Well, Hermione had been a given once she found out Draco had read _Hogwarts: a history_.

They walked out of the library and started walking towards the Gryffindor tower. Harry and Ron had a heated discussion about which was the grosser design for a candy: Jelly Slugs or Peppermint Toads. Ron vehemently defended the Slugs as the nastiest, probably an aftereffect of his snail accident in the second year, while Harry thought the toads were grosser, mostly because they realistically bounce around in your stomach after you eat them.

Hermione was hovering beside them, nose buried in a book, completely blending out their argument. Then they heard their names being called behind them and looked around to see Professor Moody walking swiftly toward them.

“Miss Granger, you are expected in McGonagall’s office. Get there as quick as possible.” He turned to walk away again but changed his mind and turned around again. “Do you know where to find Draco Malfoy? You lot seem to spend a lot of time together lately, as I heard” his magical eyes flickered from the three of them.

“Er- yes, he should still be in the library. Is something wrong?” Harry answered.

“None of your concern, Potter.” Moody shot him one last glance, but then finally walked away towards the library.

“Well, that was weird.” Ron pointed out, “What do you reckon McGonagall wants to see _you_ for, Hermione?”

“No idea” she answered, still looking into the direction Moody disappeared in, spacing out. “No idea”

* * *

When Harry went to breakfast in the Great Hall on the day of the second task and didn’t see Draco in his usual place at the end of the Slytherin table, he did not think much of it. In fact, it was a common occurrence. Draco had skipped many meals in the Great Hall since his friends in Slytherin had turned him away, and that especially ever since they had shown him the way down into the kitchen.

But when he sat down on his seat at the table and saw that Hermione wasn’t there either, he grew uneasy. Both of the people that had been called to their housemasters yesterday had disappeared, and it probably wasn’t a coincidence. Suddenly Draco’s theory about the kidnapping seemed pretty likely.

He shared a knowing look with Ron and tried to keep himself from panicking. He had prepared more than sufficiently, and surely, he would be able to get them out of the lake in an hour. And besides, they decided that nothing bad would happen to the hostages, even if the champion failed to get them. _Right?_

His nervousness only increased by the time he was walking down the path towards the lake with the rest of the Hogwarts students, Gillyweed-Jar painfully clutched between his hands. When they arrived, Ron grabbed his shoulder encouragingly and wished him good luck. Harry nodded, his lips pressed together even more fiercely than his hands around the glass, and he joined the other champions on the pier. He gazed into the dark water and tried to suppress a shiver at the thought of jumping in there any time soon. It was still mid-winter and freezing cold, even above water.

He blacked out most of Dumbledore's speech, his thoughts only interrupted by the sound of the audience screaming in the stands. He swiftly opened the glass and swallowed the Gillyweed, bitter taste blocked out by his nervousness.

He stood there for a few moments, and nothing happened. Abruptly, he was filled with doubt that it wasn't working, that Draco's research had failed, and that he and Hermione would pay for it and stay down there forever. Panic rose in him and he took a shaky breath. Well- at least he _tried_ to but found that he couldn’t breathe.

His hands flew up to his throat, clutching it unconsciously, trying to figure out what was wrong, and why he couldn’t breathe. His surroundings spun around him and he staggered around the pier lightheadedly until everything turned upside down as he stumbled into the lake.

The icy cold water forced him to gasp for air, but this time it worked. The hands clutching his throat could palpate the gills growing there and shakily he took more breaths.

When he had calmed down again, he looked around. Except for the surface of the water above him, there was nothing but endless water, no rocks, algae, or champions. Fortunately, that meant no enemies either, so far.

Harry had to keep on going, so he swam down, hopefully towards the bottom of the lake.

* * *

It didn't take long for him to find the quarter of the merpeople. At least that what he thought. Time was beginning to feel nonexistent after floating in water with nothing but water far and wide.

He swam past the staring merpeople, weapons ready in hand, and towards the place where the kidnapped people were fastened with ropes, hair and school uniform spookily floating in the water.

He stared at the four of them for a second. He was sure Draco was the one to take upstairs, but it felt wrong to just leave Hermione here. However, he assumed she was here for Krum, so he was pretty sure she would be rescued by him in time. And even if that wasn't the case, she would no doubt be upset if he wasted any more time because of her, after all the time she had spent arguing with him about the safety of the bystanders.

He quickly cut the rope securing Draco with a spell that conjured a blade, even underwater. It was one of the many spells he had learned in the last few weeks together with the others, and he was glad their efforts had paid off.

With one last glance back at the Hermione and the merpeople he made his way up towards the water surface.

As they broke the surface, he heard Draco inhale sharply, apparently having regained consciousness. He looked around furiously and cursed.

“What the bloody hell happened, Harry?! Why are we in water??” then Realisation dawned on his face. “ _Oh,_ don’t tell me my theory about it being a person and not an object was _correct_?”

Harry began to swim towards the stands where the teachers and classmates were waiting for them. “Yeah, pretty much. I and Ron realize it this morning after you and Hermione weren’t at breakfast.”

“Granger? For Krum?”

Harry nodded. “She’s still down there.”

They swam laboriously toward the stands, Harry’s fin had disappeared with his ability to breathe above water had as soon as he breathed his first breath above water.

When they finally arrived there the teacher’s helped them out of the water and gave both of them big towels to dry and get warm again. The shouts of celebration boomed around from the other stands, especially loud from the Gryffindor seats, and apparently, Harry had been the first one of the champions to be back. He grinned at their audience and walked towards Ron, who slung his arm around his shoulders and congratulated Harry with an equally big grin on his face.

“Nicely done mate! Seems like all that training hadn’t been in vain, huh? You even beat Krum to it!” he pointed towards the now arriving Hermione and Krum.

Hermione walked towards them both too and looked knowingly from Harry to Draco, smiling smugly.

Harry spoke up after she said nothing for a few moments. “Er- Hermione? Sorry I left you down there. I ought to rescue you too…”

“Rubbish, Harry. I hope you didn’t waste too much time thinking about that. I thought we had cleared that nothing would happen to the hostages anyway, no matter if they were rescued or not.” She looked at him stern and he cringed. That was exactly what he thought she would say to him.

They all sat down on the seats and looked out onto the lake. Instantly, relief flooded Harry. He was so glad that this task was finally over, and that he would have some more free time from Hermione and Draco’s study wrath for the next few weeks since it would be several months between now and the third task and finals. But he didn’t want to think about that now. All the excitement of the last few hours caught up with him and he sagged down into his seat, his head sinking on Draco’s shoulder.

He twisted his head and looked up at him. He looked about as tired as Harry felt, apparently sleeping magically for 16 hours wasn’t very restful at all.

Draco caught his eye and smiled at him tiredly. “Glad this is all over now, are you?”

“Very.” he looked back at the dark water of the lake again. “Now I can do some other things than staying at the library for the whole day. Not sure how you stand that willingly, to be honest.”

"Well, you can't be a genius like me without studying, Harry.”

“Narcissistic ass,” Harry muttered under his breath and Draco snickered.

“So,” Draco began, “’ Something you’ll sorely miss’ huh?” he said softly and shot Harry a glance. “Didn’t think that’d be me.” 

“Oh, don’t let it feed your ego, Draco. It’s too big as it is.”

“My ego is nowhere as big as yours, Potter.” he joked, although it sounded a bit strained. “No, I thought if someone, it would be Granger or Weasley. Or that girl you went to the ball with.”

"Parvati?! I only went with her because I had to go with someone. No other reason." he said quickly and added; "Otherwise I wouldn't have danced with you." and immediately regretted it. They hadn't talked about the Yule Ball before, not after their argument, and Harry had conveniently convinced himself that it had all been a dream. Not a nightmare, though. It had been too nice for that.

Uneasy silence engulfed them for a few moments and Harry wanted to sink into Draco's shoulder and scream in frustration.

“About that dance,” Draco broke the quiet, “it’s pretty embarrassing thinking back on it, isn’t it?” he laughed awkwardly. “I think we were both somewhat drunk to get into a situation like that... not that I regret it though. How could I? It brought us to where we are now.” He paused and then added; “If you told me a few months ago that I would sit here one day, next to Granger and Weasley,” he gestured towards the two a few seats down, where Hermione was sleeping on Ron’s lap, and Ron was panicking while trying not to wake her. “and Harry bloody Potter leaning on my shoulder I would have punched you. Well, I would have punched you anyway, but that’s not the point.” Harry laughed loudly, which earned a dirty glare from Ron.

"You're right about that. I've never repented of it either. If it weren’t for that dance, we would've probably continued to fight for _years,_ and if you ask me, I think bickering with you is leagues better than throwing insults and hexes at each other. Not that I couldn’t handle them of course.” He shot a challenging look at Draco, who snorted.

“ _Of course, Potter, just keep telling that to yourself_ ” his voice full of sarcasm. Then he paused as if remembering something. “Speaking about cursing, do you remember that dueling club we had in the second year?”

Harry nodded and smiled smugly. “Do _you_ remember that you unfairly conjured a snake out of nowhere and I sent right back at you?”

Draco shuddered and Harry’s head vibrated. “How could I forget? Still bloody creepy that you speak Parseltongue if you ask me. I think the last Parselmouth we knew of was the Dark Lord…And yeah, thinking back on it that was a brilliant move. I was scared out of my mind.” He snickered again. “I think we ought to duel again sometime, Potter. Without any Parseltongue this time, mind you.” He said and shot a dirty look at Harry.

Harry thought about it for a second. He supposed it would be pretty fun to duel Draco again, and this time in a fair way, not like all the other times they had fought before.

“You’re on, Malfoy,” he exclaimed and yawned. He looked out on the lake again. Cedric was still underwater, and it would still take a while until they could wrap up the day and had to return to the castle. So, he was staring on the dark water of the Great Lake, waiting for Cedric to turn up, and buried his face comfortably in Draco's shoulder, whose head, in turn, dropped on his, and he closed his eyes.

He didn’t notice falling asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! this chapter turned out way longer than i initially planed it to, but i was determined to follow my (newly made) chapter outline, so here you have that long ass chapter!  
> School started again so i will update much less regularly, although i plan to update at least once every week or two!
> 
> I'm really content with the development in this chapter and i hope you are too!


	11. Chapter 11

The morning after the second task felt slow and exhausting. It was as if the task had sucked all the energy out of Harry and was very adamant to give it back again.

He would have loved to get it back, though, because the following day was a very taxing one.

The tournament had been held on a weekend and Dumbledore couldn’t just have given them more than a morning off after the tournament, which meant that he had to deal with a bloody Monday on top of the exhausting of the last couple of days. 

And it wasn’t just him. The other Gryffindors had celebrated a party in the common room, with everyone from the other houses welcome to join. Not that the bulk of Slytherin would have joined in, of course, mind you.

Not even Draco had wanted to stay there and left pretty early, even before Harry eventually had, convinced the other houses would have his head if he did anything more than just dropping Harry off. Even if that wasn't the case ... well, it wasn't for _most_ of the other houses. Harry was sure, though, that he could get him to stay for the next party.

Although Harry had slept through most of it, the party sounded like fun, at least according to the Hangover-potions he saw Dean and Seamus drink the morning after.

But even though Harry had been forced to go to bed early, by both Hermione, Draco and by his own tired body, he found it hard to keep his eyes open at breakfast. His fatigue made him completely oblivious to his surroundings, and he jumped out of his skin when Ron nudged him at breakfast. 

“Why’re they all staring and whispering? I mean, more than usual?” he said with a full mouth.

"What do you mean?" Harry looked around the Great Hall. Ron was right. There were a lot of people glaring at them. He wondered, annoyed, what the problem this time was.

Hermione sat down swiftly opposite to them and laid the book in her arms down onto the table. “I reckon it’s because of yesterday.” 

She saw their clueless faces and added, “You know, the whole ‘Malfoy is the person you’ll miss the most’-thing?”

Harry blanched and looked around the Hall furiously. “That’s none of their bloody business!”, he hadn’t thought of that issue at all. Completely skipped over the whole thing once he had that conversation with Draco yesterday.

“That's nothing new, though, right? That whole school had always had their noses in other people's business. It's nothing we haven't dealt with before." She shot Harry a reassuring look, only to add, “I’m more worried about Malfoy.” They both looked over to the Slytherin table concerned. Draco was, like always, sitting on the end of the table alone, but the gap between him and the other students got bigger.

“Yeah,” Harry breathed. “Me too.”

* * *

Shortly after, it began to snow, and large, heavy snowflakes came floating down next to the thick glass windows, taking everyone's already scant attention away from the lessons, and soon the Hogwarts grounds were covered by a deep layer of snow. 

During the break, the first and second year were storming out onto the courtyards, running around and trying to catch snowflakes with their mouths. No-one seemed to mind that just yesterday, there had been people swimming in the ice-cold lake, with nothing more than a bathing suit.

Especially not Dumbledore, who smiled fondly at them during lunch and declared that lessons would be canceled today, as a celebration of the tournament yesterday. Harry thought he just wanted to go out in the snow himself.

As soon as he said that, the students were running around the tables excitedly, asking their friends to go outside with them into the snow. 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione, on the other hand, sank into their seats and relished the thought of having a whole day to themselves without an upcoming tournament, exams, or homework. 

For the last couple of weeks, they had been using every free time available to go into the library to do some more research or do their homework. Draco and Hermione had already started studying for their exams too, even though they were still half a year away.

But then Harry looked up again at Draco and said, “Maybe we should do something with Draco. Y’know, ‘cause I’m sure he’d want to do something too, for a change.”

“Mate, what happened to you” Ron groaned from next to him. “The Harry a few months ago would’ve slept the whole bloody day without regrets.” Hermione smiled at that.

“Harry’s just growing up,” she said a matter-of-factly and looked at Ron sternly “I'm sure it’s hard to imagine for you, _Ron_.”

Ron groaned again and sank even deeper into his seat and Hermione and Harry both broke into laughter.

“Well, if no-one of you wants to come with me…” he looked at Hermione expectantly, who shook her head and pointed to her book.

“I’ll go alone then.” He stood up and pointily walked towards the Slytherin table, ignoring the stares of the rest of the hall. Draco was looking at him in alarm, and Harry had the sudden thought that maybe drawing even _more_ attention to Draco had been a bad idea. 

He didn’t waver though and continued to walk towards him until he sat down opposite Draco, smirking at his obvious discomfort.

“You ass,” Draco mumbled and looked down on his plate. 

“What? I thought you liked the attention”

He glared at him “Not this kind of attention. I actually _care_ what other people think about me, you know, unlike you kind.”

“Hey, I care about that too. I’m just used to deal with it. As are Hermione and Ron.” He paused for a second and then added, “Are you okay, by the way? `Cause I know just a few months ago you would’ve completely flipped.“

„It’s alright. Probably needs a bit of time to get used to. I’m still accustomed to being surrounded by people and idolized.“ He pulled a face and added, “Not that I mourn not having that anymore. I think it got to my head…“ 

Harry snorted, "You can count on it."

Draco scowled at him, but continued, looking at Harry expectantly, "So, why did you come here?"

„Oh, er- I wanted to ask if you wanted to go out into the snow today. Hermione and Ron were too lazy to come.“

Draco’s eyes budged. „That's all?? You came here and caused all this trouble just to ask me out?!“ He scowled at Harry but smirked when he saw the look of embarrassment on Harry’s face. 

„It’s not a date! You git!“ He felt his cheeks heat up and turned to stand back up, to leave and bury himself somewhere ashamedly, when Draco caught his arm reflexively.

„Wait up, Harry! It was just a bloody joke. Don’t just run away, you buffoon.” He said defensively. “When do you want to go? This afternoon?“ 

Harry sat down again and mumbled a ‚yeah‘. He groaned and sunk on the table, „You ass.“ 

He heard a chuckle and glanced up at Draco again. „Yeah, yeah, I know. You’re the dunce who can’t stand a joke!“

Harry sighed again and took a potato off a plate on the table next to them. 

Draco snorted again; „Just go ahead, make yourself comfortable. Make them stare even more.“

„What? I’m hungry!“ 

„How can you still be hungry?! You just ate a whole meal!“ 

Smiling, Harry shook his head disapprovingly, „That was only the first course.“

Draco was still staring at him incredulous when Harry took another potato with him and stood up.

„See you this afternoon then. In an hour at the greenhouses?“ 

Draco nodded and Harry finally turned away. He walked back to his table again, skin buzzing with anticipation.

* * *

Most of the halls and corridors were deserted when Draco walked towards the Greenhouse. The majority of the students were either staying inside the dorms or were spending time at the snowy meadow next to the lake. No-one was stupid enough to think about going in the other direction, towards the Forbidden Forest, not like he and Harry intended to do.

Draco looked up quickly before stepping outside into the snow. The sky was grey and very dark, considering it was still midday. He placed a quick warming and umbrella spell onto himself.

He would have to cast them again every few minutes, but it was more than worth it once he saw Harry wrapped up entirely. He was wearing a big warm jacket with a scarf and woolly hat, only his eyes showing from beneath all his layers.

“Well, someone’s dressed warmly...” he smirked.

“Shut up, Draco. It's all Hermione's fault that I'm dressed like a penguin, not because I wanted to!” he said grumpily.

“Ah, so you are aware that you look like a penguin?” 

“Of course I am! I’m dressed way too warm, even for snow. And it’s not like I wasn’t _swimming_ in an ice-cold lake just **yesterday!!** ” he looked down at the floor, sulking.

Draco sighed. “But as I know her, Hermione wouldn’t accept that, right?”

“…She didn’t,” he said, and Draco snickered.

“So come on then, Penguin. Where’d you want to go?” 

Harry’s lip curled up but ignored Draco’s remark. “Well, I figured most people should be down at the lake, so we should go in the opposite direction, towards the forest.”

Draco nodded agreeing and started to walk in the direction of the forest in the far. The snow was fresh and powdery, and it creaked under his feet. The snowstorm from earlier had nearly stopped, just the occasional snowflake came blowing into his face. 

He heard Harry quickly catching up with him and walk beside him. The snow in front of them was dazzlingly white and Draco had to shield his eyes from it. Glancing to his right, he saw Harry staring unperturbed ahead, his scarf pushed under his chin and taking his hat in his hand, making his loose hair blow in the wind and disheveled.

“Why did you lose your good look already, oh penguin-who-lived?” Malfoy broke the quiet.

Harry sighed, despairing. “Am I going to have to endure those bad penguin jokes from now on?”

“Whatever you’re speaking off, Golden Boy? Or rather, Golden _Penguin_?” he said innocently. 

“I’d prefer if you didn’t.”

“Too bad, huh?” he answered mockingly, but Harry just sighed. Draco narrowed his eyes suspiciously. 

“What wrong with you, anyway? You’re the one who initiated this whole thing and now you’re suddenly sulking about something.”

Harry looked at him weirdly, as if that idiot hadn’t expected Draco to notice it. Draco sighed too, now, and kept on talking, “Y’know I’m pretty smart. Maybe I can help.”

That made Harry smile a tiny bit and Draco counted it as a win. “It’s nothing, really. Just got some news from my godfather, that’s all.”

“You have a godfather?” Draco said surprised. He wondered if he had grown up with him.

“Yeah. Not for long though. Just learned about it last year.” 

Oh, well that answered that question. Wait. “Who did you grow up with then?” ‘ _Since your parents aren't there’_ was left unsaid. 

Suddenly Draco couldn’t hear Harry’s stomps anymore and looked over to him, startled. Harry was standing a few steps behind him, eyes widened and staring at him shocked. His right hand with his hat trembled and all the color was draining from his face. Then he saw the look on Draco’s face and shook himself as if trying to shake a memory away. 

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly. “Just didn’t expect that question right now.”

Draco was pulsing with curiosity, but he thought if he kept prodding now, he wouldn't get answers right now, fidgety as he was. It was better at rest, for now.

So he just nodded at Harry and turned away. He heard Harry sigh loudly in relief, and Draco found it more and more difficult for him to stick to his decision.

Instead, he walked ahead, snow crunching loudly under his feet. In the distance was Hagrid’s hut, and the forest was not far from them, only down the hill. Draco wondered if Harry had some kind of plan.

He looked up into the grey sky and felt the snow land on his face and melt. A few blobs run down his face, only stopped by his dark green scarf. Draco was very grateful that his mother gave it to him ago for Christmas a few months ago. He kept walking straight ahead, his thoughts wandering to his mother and the weird holidays they had this year. 

Father had been unusually cagey and secretive and had been quiet for most of their Christmas dinner. Mother had tried to compensate that with talking for the both of them, but it hadn’t quite felt the same. After that, during the holidays, he had rarely seen him outside dinnertime. 

What’s even more, various colleges of his father have visited the Manor, some of which Draco knew from the Ministry. Not a rare sight, but there had never been that many before yet, and Draco was suspicious of his father’s activities. Not that he could do anything against it, even talking to him or his mother about it would have been highly inappropriate…

Then suddenly he was torn from his dark thoughts as he slipped out on the snow. The world shifted before his eyes and turned dark as he closed them automatically. His arms tried to catch him but failed, and he landed face first in the snow. He tumbled down the hill, turning over and over, and when he finally caught himself and opened his eyes again, the world was still spinning.

He looked at the spinning Harry on top of the hill, laughing his ass off, the sound echoing off the trees in the background, and felt a smile grow on his face himself. He grabbed a handful of snow and threw it into the direction of Harry, not hitting him of course, since he was still a bit dizzy. That only made Harry laugh even more, and Draco yelled at him:

“Stop laughing you git! It’s not that funny.”

“IT IS! You fell down the hill! That was bloody brilliant!” Harry replied between his laughs. 

Draco stood up sulkily and tried to wipe the snow off his clothes. He looked up at Harry again and shot a snowball at him again, this time hitting him. Harry yelped surprised, and staggered back, nearly losing his balance. Then he caught himself and looked down at Draco appraisingly, smirking. He swiftly bent down to grab some snow and threw it at Draco, who dodged. 

Shortly they were exchanging one snowball after another, both scrambling for snow at the same time and then throwing it up or down again, though Draco thought he was at a disadvantage, having to throw upwards. Draco found himself laughing he a snowball hit Harry full-on in the face, laughing too. 

Then all of the sudden, Harry began to stagger forward down the hill, with a whole armful of snow and a menacing smile on his face. Draco yelped and turned to run away into the direction of the forest. 

“Oh, you’re on!” he heard Harry yell behind him, but Draco didn’t turn around, just kept on running, laughing. When he entered the forest, it was significantly less snowing, and Draco faltered for a second, looking up at the high crowns and the broad boles of the ancient trees all around him. But then he heard Harry coming through too and kept on running. 

There was still snow on the ground, though not so much to cover the roots. Draco leaped over them, running past the trunks and brushing his fingers against the bark and small branches, trailing his hands along them.

He sprinted on the creaking snow and felt a laugh bubble up in his chest again, and he heard Harry laughing behind him too. In that moment, running past the trees of the forbidden forest, over roots and snow, pursued by Harry, he felt more alive than he had ever felt before in his life. And he couldn’t help laughing, and he couldn’t help keeping going, even though his lung felt like it would collapse at every given moment. His legs felt like collapsing too, and his feet were heavy from stomping on the snow for far too long. But oddly enough he didn’t feel the exhausting at all. He felt as if he could run a hundred miles and more. He felt weightless.

But of course, because everything has an end, he tripped over a root sticking out of the snow. He stumbled for the second time that day, and this time he caught himself with his hands and could roll on his back. He was still lying there, sprawled, when Harry arrived a few moments later, swiftly collapsing next to him on the snow. They were both laying there next to each other, gasping for breath, fight forgotten. His breaths puffed before his eyes, and he stared up onto the crowns of the trees around them, the sky barely visible.

“That was something, huh?” Draco asked out loud.

“Yeah, that was something.” Harry replied, still out of breath. 

They left it at that for a bit, and comfortable silence filled between them as both of them looking up at the trees. Then Draco sat up and looked down at Harry, sprawled there like a goldfish in the snow, and smiled. And Harry grinned back. 

And even if they had to search for a way back out of the forest for an hour after that, both fearing for their lives as the sky grew darker, Draco couldn’t be happier.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there! I hope y'all enjoyed that chapter, and if you did, I would be really happy if you could leave a kudos or even a commen! I would really appreciate some feedback!  
> Btw this chapter is totally not me writing about an experience I had last week when if finally snowed ;)
> 
> So I have a quick question! It's the time for me to decide if i wanted to finish this whole thing with fourth year, or if i wanted to keep going into fifth, because i have to plan the plot accordingly!  
> So PLEASE if any of you have some kind of opinion on this, write it below, cause i dont know if my writing is any good or not, and if i should keep going. 
> 
> And I wouldn't dare to leave you guys with an open ending if I decide to just not write the fifth book too :)


	12. Chapter 12

After that day they continued to go outside and venture into the forbidden forest from time to time. They haven’t been in mortal danger yet, though Draco thought it was only a matter of time, especially since he had Harry Potter at his side.

Not that they haven’t been in danger before, they had met several creatures in the forest, but they either didn’t care or hadn’t noticed the two of them. Whatever it was that made them stay away, Draco was glad about it.

He had been surprised at how peaceful the forest was at daylight. Due to his detention during the first year, which had taken place at night, he had always believed it to be a dark and eerie place. But he found out that that wasn’t true at all. It had a strange sort of calmness to it and at the more open places, where the crowns weren’t so high and impermeable, it was actually really pretty and peaceful. 

Even more so when one day they found a small clearing with a frozen pond and an abandoned hut next to it. 

It had been getting darker much more quickly in the last few days and no-one had been able to spend much time outside, let alone going into the forbidden forest. So they had gone on a much bigger trip than they usually did, much deeper into the forest. And there they found it. Draco quickly went to check if the hut was safe to enter or not, and how long it had been standing there abandoned. 

Dust was lying thickly on the few pieces of furniture and a piece of the roof was missing, but that was nothing that a few spells and a Scourgify couldn’t fix. There was barely enough room for a table, a few shelves, a bed, and a fireplace in the small hut and Draco swiftly cleaned them up. He was looking at one of the shelves when Harry came walking into the hut.

“There aren’t any creatures nearby, so I think it’s safe to stay here for a bit. Also, the lake is thick enough to stand on.”

“Tried that one out, didn’t you Potter?” he smirked.

Harry shot him an unamused glance. “I wanted to say it’s probably possible to skate on it. It's big enough too.”

“Skate?” 

“You don’t know what ice skating is?! I thought all rich people did it.” Harry looked at him surprised.

“Rich muggles perhaps. I’ve never heard of it before.”

“Huh. I don’t know much about it either, but skating is sort of gliding on the ice with some sort of special shoes. Er, and the shoes have knives at the bottom. For the gliding.”

“That sounds more like a torture method than a leisure activity, Harry. Are you sure you’re not confusing anything?” Draco wondered.

Again, Harry shot him a look. “Yes, _Draco_ , I’m pretty sure muggles do that for fun. The Dursleys have brought me there too, once. In a big hall with ice on the floor.” He looked around thoughtfully, but Draco stored the word _Dursleys_ for later since they probably were the people Harry had grown up with, and he wanted to know more about them. But not now. Harry would just cage up again, and Draco wanted to avoid that.

So he ignored it and instead asked: “And how do the knives come into play?”

“Well, they’re not really knives, per se, more… blades. And they stick to the bottom of the shoe so that you can sort of cut the ice to stand on it. You think we could transfigure something like that?”

Draco glanced sheepishly to the floor. “I’m not the best at transfiguration so it’s probably best if we ask Granger about it. I’m sure she knows how those blade things work too, being a Muggleborn.”

Harry looked at him proudly and nodded. “That’s a good idea. We’ll ask her when we get back to Hogwarts.” He then walked towards the hole in the roof and examined it. “Do you think we can fix it?”

Draco sighed. “That’s transfiguration too. We could try though.”

“And if that doesn’t work, we’ll just do it in the muggle way,” Harry said and pointed to the nails on one of the shelves.

They both got to work. They went into the vicinity of the hut to gather some wood or sticks, which they then transfigured into a whole piece of wood and placed at the hole. When they failed to transfigure the roof whole again, they decided that a good sticking charm would do too.

After that, they cleaned the rest of the room, including the bedsheets and the old lamp hanging from the low ceiling, which seemed to work without any electricity at all.

“Do you think someone still uses the hut?” Harry asked him.

“Didn’t look like someone had been here in a long time. Some past teacher probably built it.”

Harry nodded and turned to look at the fireplace. “How come it’s so warm in here without the fire going?”

Draco snorted. “You think the only thing keeping Hogwarts warm are the few fires in the common rooms? Hogwarts has to be magically heated during the winter, or else we would probably all freeze to death in the cold stone walls.”

“Oh. That makes sense. The same’s happing here?”

Draco nodded. “Or it’s magically insulated from the cold. That's actually more likely because it was warm even though it had a hole in the roof."

Harry was satisfied with this answer and turned to look at the shelves again. 

“You know about the dueling club we spoke about a few weeks ago?” He asked and Draco nodded, “I thought that maybe we should start dueling alone. Just us two. Y’know, compare our knowledge and stuff. Then we can do real lessons with the others.”

“That would be more like a tutoring club than a dueling one. But yeah, I think teaching them some stuff would be nice too.” He smirked at Harry, “if you think you could stand a chance against me.”

Harry turned around away from the shelf and smirked too. “That’s the question you should ask yourself.”

“Just don’t run to Granger when you get hurt too much, I’ve warned you!".

He smiled deviously at him and stepped outside the hut. “How about a duel right now?”

Draco smiled back and walked next to Harry. “You’re on, Potter!”

* * *

When they returned to Hogwarts that afternoon, both of them were full of bruises. Harry was limping slightly, and Draco had been clutching his side since Harry had hit him with a stinging hex in the first five minutes. 

They were considering asking Hermione to heal them since she was the most skilled healer in their little group, but they were dreading telling her what they’ve been up to. They had their fill of bruises for today, and as Draco knew Hermione, she was sure to knock them both over the head.

However, when the two of them arrived at the quad, walking past it side by side there was no worrying Hermione in sight, only students standing together in small clusters, moving closer together when they saw Harry and Draco.

Draco thought that was probably the price for walking side by side next to Potter, and not just staying in the library or the forest until it got dark. The ruckus about them still hadn’t calmed down.

As they expected, as soon as they run into Hermione in the corridor, she cried out at the looks of them and fused on, tending to their injuries.

“What happened?! Did you run into some kind of monster in the forbidden forest?!”

“Shhh Hermione, no-one’s supposed to know about it! We could all get in some grave detention if they knew what we’ve been up to!” She paled at his words and looked around swiftly and Harry continued on, “You’ll never believe us what we’ve found! Wait until you hear about it!”

Her face darkened and she looked at both of them sternly, “Did that cause your injuries? Because then I don’t want to hear any of it, I’ll have you stay away from either way.

Draco glanced over to Harry before speaking, “The injuries are unrelated to the place we discovered. Uhm- we might’ve been dueling for a bit there though.” he was rubbing his neck sheepishly while speaking and he and Harry both looked to the ground.

“Boys!! You mean to tell me you inflicted these bruises on yourselves?!!” They both nodded. She stared at them exasperated, “That was utterly stupid of the both of you. Don’t you dare expect me to heal those injuries or fix them yourselves. I will check on the both of you in a few days, and until then you’re healing in the _muggle way_.”

Draco sighed and looked up at her standing there with both hands on her waist and utterly irritated. It would've been better to not underestimate the extent of Hermione’s wrath.

When they both stood there, compiling to their fate, Hermione sighed too, turned around, and stormed off, “Come on then! You wanted to tell us about the place you found today right? We’re going to find Ron!”

* * *

“They dueled against each other?!” Ron exclaimed, and Hermione looked pleased with his reaction, until, “Who won the match??”

Draco and Harry shared a glance and looked at Hermione smugly. Draco scowlingly filled Ron in, “14 – 10 for Harry.” and added, “That’s _only_ because he hit me with a Stinging Hex in the first match and I was unfairly distracted during the rest, though.”

“Stop with the excuses, Draco. You were perfectly capable of hexing me back after that, and you don’t see me whining, do you?” he shook his head in amused exasperation.

“Malfoy’s do not whine! I was merely defending myself, you prick!” he glowered at Harry, who stared right back.

Hermione cut in, “Boys, stop your bickering! We’re here because you wanted to tell us about something, right?!”

Draco shot Harry one last glance and looked ahead. Hermione and Ron sat on the ugly red couch they had sat on after Hermione had finished dragging them into the Gryffindor common room. And although Draco was entirely uncomfortable in the excessively crimson decorated room, seated opposite to them in a big red armchair, he had to admit that there was something cozy about it, too.

The fire burning happily in the fireplace in the corner, the soft rug under their feet, and the friendly portraits hanging all-around at the walls were all very different to the cold Slytherin common room. So, although he had to be convinced to stay by Harry and was rather uncomfortable in the vicinity of so many Gryffindors, it wasn’t all too bad.

Soon Harry had filled them in on their fund this afternoon. Hermione was looking at them skeptically, whereas Ron just seemed to be a bit bored.

“That’s it? Just a small, dickey cabin in the woods? It’s not really worth the efforts of restoring it, right?” he asked.

“And not to forget all the dangers! There could’ve been so many creatures drawn to the place by your shouting and your magic! I don’t have to tell you two how dangerous the forest can be, do I?” she said sternly.

Draco thought back to the traumatizing detentions in the first year and shuddered.

But Harry did nothing like that. “But it’s perfect! It’s like the secret place we always wanted!”

“Speak for yourself there Harry! I’m perfectly fine in the castle.” Hermione shrugged.

“Also, the castle has secret rooms too! Just think of all the unused classrooms and little alcoves! Going into the forest is just unnecessary danger.” Ron chimed in.

Harry glowered at the both of them for a second and then glanced back at Draco questioningly. Draco sighed.

“You know I’m all for it. Today was fun” he smirked.

“Even though you lost big time?” Harry smirked back.

“Boys!!” Hermione cried out exasperated, “I won’t patch you up if you get hurt again, you hear me?!”

'As if she will be able to hold herself back' Draco thought, knowing Hermione well enough to know that by now, but nodded all the same.

There was few seconds of silence as Hermione stared at the both of them suspiciously, until Harry cut in, “By the way, Hermione, do you think you could transfigure us some skate shoes?”

Hermione looked surprised, “Skate shoes?”

“Yeah, for skating on the pond we found next to the hut. It’s the perfect size.”

“Well, I guess they shouldn’t be too hard to make. Just- “

“…be careful. Yes, Hermione, we know!” Harry interjected, and earned a dark look from Hermione. 

“Was just making sure. It doesn't seem like you two know how to be careful, you know.”

Draco leaned back and tuned the rest of their discussion out. His armchair was just way too comfortable...

He was dozing off comfortably when a piece of paper hit him square on his forehead.

“Oi, what the bloody hell- “ he sat up straight again and looked around furiously, until he saw Ron opposite to him, grinning.

“You wanna play some chess, Draco?”

He was taken aback by the sudden friendliness and the casual use of his name but agreed anyway. “Sure.”

So, he and Ron got on playing wizard chess while Hermione and Harry were bickering next to them.

And if Ron won the first round, well, Draco just had to get even, didn't he?

* * *

Draco went down to dinner with Harry, Hermione, and a grumpy Ron a few hours later. They were in the process of walking down one of the more treacherous staircases, paying close attention to their steps, when Blaise came up from behind and walked beside him.

“Draco.” He spoke up when Draco didn’t react, “I need to speak with you for a second.”

"What for, Zabini?" retorted Draco in his most spiteful voice. He could feel the others to his right staring at him, telling him that he now sounded like his old self.

Blaise didn’t seem affected though. “Oh, come on, Draco. Don’t be like that. You can’t blame me for keeping a bit of distance from you!”

“I can and I will,” Draco said while turning left to the next staircase. Blaise caught up with him a second later, and Draco looked him in the eye for the first time in a few months. “It was unnecessary, Blaise.”

“You can’t blame me for searching a bit of space while you were all buddy-buddy with Potter and his friends!” He looked over to Harry and the others. “No offense.”

Harry snorted and Draco ignored it exasperated. “What changed your mind? ‘Cause as I see it, you're not keeping the slightest bit of distance."

Blaise snickered “Yeah that’s true. You just seemed like much more fun lately.” He said and smirked. “Plus, Pansy has been really annoying recently with you gone, and I thought you might be the better option.”

“I feel honored.” he said and rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Draco. I know you understand me. You’re a Slytherin after all.”

Draco sighed. “No-one would ever dream of thinking they understood you.”

“Oi!” Blaise exclaimed and Harry and Ron were laughing at Draco’s right. 

“Stop laughing you Twats!” he looked over at them. “It’s true. He’s full of mysteries even he himself has no clue of!”

Blaise pouted at his left and Draco sighed again. Balancing those two wouldn’t be easy.

He stopped, took Blaise’s arm, and left the two of them to fall behind the others. He looked seriously over at Blaise whose easygoing look was also replaced.

“You seriously want to be seen with me and Potter? They will probably call you a blood traitor too, you know. I knew the risk when I befriended Potter-“

“I know it too.” Blaise interrupted him. “Don't take me for a fool, Draco.”

“Then why-!“ he exclaimed exasperated. 

“Because I think you might need help in the future.” Blaise stared back at him gravely. “And unlike your parents, my mom doesn’t give a shit with whom I talk with.”

Draco blanched and something heavy settled in his stomach. He let Blaise’s arm go and turned away from him. “Come on now. We’ll be too late for dinner.”

But in truth, every thought of eating something was gone when he thought about what the future might hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, I hope you liked this chapter! 
> 
> I would be glad for any feedback, may it be a kudos or a comment! Until next time!


	13. Chapter 13

Harry was lying on his back, looking up at the gray sky, and panting heavily from exhaustion.

When a sharp thud sounded a few feet away from him, he knew that Draco followed suit onto the ground. He smirked to himself and, without looking away from the sky, broke the quiet.

"Not so tough now, are you, Draco?"

He practically _heard_ him roll his eyes next to him. “You fell down before me, it’s clearly my win.”

“ _This time_ ,” Harry corrected him, still smiling smugly. "How many wins does that make for you?"

A short pause. “…40 to 35. I’m catching up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry replied, “keep telling that to yourself. One can always dream.”

Again, the eye roll. Then nothing sounded in the clearing for a moment but their faint breaths. Harry was almost tempted to close his eyes and doze, so tired was he. But he knew that he wouldn't be able to doze off anyways, his back still stinging from the last time he and Draco had dueled, and Hermione had refused to heal it.

"You know, you're getting better and better at this. If you put that much effort into DADA, you'd easily be the best in the class. Next to me, of course." Harry said

He heard Draco snort, “As if I could put in _that_ much more effort.” He paused for a second, “Besides, everyone already knows I’m on-par with the Golden Boy, no need for me to prove myself.”

“You sure about that? We don’t fight publicly anymore, so you didn’t really ‘prove’ anything in the last few months. I bet they noticed and thought you grew lax on me.” he laughed and folded his arms under his head.

He heard Draco grumble something and stand up ponderously. Harry rolled his head away from the sky to look up at him.

Draco was standing a few yards away, staring at him with an unreadable face and Harry felt chills ran down his spine. He blamed it on the cold ground he was lying on.

A second later, Draco abruptly turned away and walked out of the clearing, toward the cottage. Harry shot up from the ground, the arms laying underneath his head comfortable a few seconds ago fell to his sides tensely and he pushed himself up from the cold ground, anxiety puzzling in his stomach. It wasn’t like Draco to just stand up and walk away. 

Harry quickly cast a warming spell on himself followed after him.

“Is something wrong?” he called, but Draco walked unperturbed on, ignoring Harry. Harry frowned and entered the hut after him. 

“Draco?” he asked again.

He turned back to him, smiling again, but Harry could tell underneath that fake smile. 

“Do you want some tea?” Draco said and turned his back to Harry and walked towards the shelf. They had brought some supplies down here, including Tea and crockery. He took out two cups and bags of tea.

Harry nodded unconsciously and shook his head. He fixed Draco with a stare. “What the bloody hell is wrong, Draco??”

No response came and Harry sighed and leaned against the wall of the hut. He watched silently as Draco filled the two cups with a soft “ _Aguamenti_ ”, an advanced spell they weren’t supposed to learn in _years_ , and rolled his eyes. 

“See, you’re great at Charms and Defense! It’d be no problem for you to catch up with me, at all. So what are you suddenly so clammed up about?”

Draco stirred the two teas silently, and turned around away from them, leaning against the table they were steaming on. “It’s nothing. I'm just still thinking about something Blaise mentioned a few days ago." He said as if that would explain anything.

“Blaise?” Harry asked, confused. “What did he say?”

Draco sighed and resigned himself to his fate. "Let's just say he reminded me how glad we should be that my father hasn't picked up on us being friends yet, Harry. He wouldn't be pleased at all that I'm chummy with the Saviour and his little circle."

Harry blanched. “I totally forgot about that.” he breathed.

Draco laughed coldly. “Yeah, me too. I’ve always felt safe because I thought there was no chance of him finding out, but now I realize that there are more than a dozen people in Hogwarts that could easily rat us out, most of them being my old _friends_.”

"Let's just hope they never do." Harry said under his breath, but he saw in Draco's face that both of them knew how unlikely that chance was.

They stood in silence for a few minutes until Draco softly broke the quiet. “The tea’s ready.”

Harry sat down on the wobbly chair next to the table. “Thanks,” he muttered before drinking a sip of the tea. It was perfect.

“God, where did you learn to make tea this good?” he exclaimed looked up at Draco surprised. 

Upon seeing a smirk there on Draco's face, he exhaled a breath he didn't know he had been holding. “It’s not that difficult, Potter. Your only job is to take the bag out at the perfect time and sweeten it. The rest lies all with the herbs of the tea.”

“Then I’ll correct my question. Where did you get tea bags this good?” he smiled smugly at Draco, who shook his head exasperated.

“Mother sent them to me after I’ve told her about the hut a few days ago.” He said nonchalantly.

Harry choked on his tea and broke into a coughing fit. “She knows about us?!” he exclaimed when he had caught his breath.

“Of course she does. She’s my mother, I ought to tell her these things.”

“And what about your father? Won’t she tell him?”

He paused for a second. “She knows what’s good for our family. She won’t tell him.” He said confidently and added, “She told us to be careful. Not just in the forest, but also in school and the rest of the wizarding world. She said there are a lot of people that wouldn’t hesitate to hurt us both for being friends with each other.”

Harry thought about that for a second. "Well, tell her a thank you from me, but until they can come up with something more dangerous than the bloody _Triwizard Tournament_ , I don't think we're in any danger from any of them."

Draco laughed and said, “I'll pass that message on to her, don’t worry. I told her something similar myself. Just with a bit less… cursing.”

Harry chuckled into his tea before gulping it down and placing it on the surface of the table. He stood up and pushed the chair back noisily.

"We should start heading back slowly. We’ve been fighting for Merlin knows how long this afternoon." He said.

“It’s not fighting, Potter. We’re merely dueling each other.”

Harry smirked, “Yeah, tell that to yourself when you get worked up and bluster during our ‚duels'. You're a sore loser, Malfoy, admit it.”

"I am not.” Draco looked offended, “I'm just getting carried away with all the excitement."

Harry wryly let out an affirmative hum and turned around towards the door.

"Come on now. We shouldn't worry Hermione because we'll be back too late. Merlin knows what she would do if we didn't show up by nightfall.”

“Either get us out of this damned forest ourselves or telling every teacher what we’ve been up to in order to start a search party. No in-between.” Draco murmured and Harry snorted.

Together they walked away from the clearing the hut was standing on and entered the treeline next to the frozen pond. As soon as they were in the shadow of the trees, their whole environment darkened tremendously, and coldness engulfed them. Harry once again had to cast a warming charm on himself and let out a warm sigh. 

Draco did the same next to him and Harry watched enthralled as his warm breath made little clouds in the cold winter air, nearly tripping over a root looking at him from the side.

“Idiot.” He heard Draco mumble on his right.

“Shut it you git.” he replied and shoved him in his side. Right into a tree. 

He groaned exasperated and glared at Harry, “Who’s the git now.”

Harry cringed, “Wasn’t on purpose.”

“ _Not on purpose_ my ass.” He retorted and shoved Harry right back, so hard that he toppled down on the ground.

“It’s true!” Harry exclaimed and stood up again. He brushed the snow from his clothes, pouting, and turned his head up to glare at Draco. Then, in the background behind Draco, Harry saw something move, and he felt his blood involuntary run cold.

“Excuses, Harry,” Draco carries on continuously, unaware of any danger, and Harry had to jump forward and clasp his hand over his mouth to stop him from continuing. Maybe whatever was lurking there in the shadows hadn't noticed them yet. The chances of that were slim, though, Harry had to admit to himself with gritted teeth.

He pulled Draco behind a tree and out of sight of it. When Harry glanced down at him, Draco looked close to biting Harry into his fingers just to spite him, so Harry withdrew his hand swiftly and hissed an explanation in his ear.

“There was someone behind us in the trees. Or _something_.” He watched Draco’s eyes widen fearfully, and felt his own heart pounding wildly in his chest. He glanced out behind the tree to check if it was still there and quickly pulled his head back when he saw it.

With a glance down, he whispered “It’s still there.”, and sunk down on the ground where Draco was sitting, knees drawn up to his chest. 

“How does it look?”

“Not sure,” Harry replied since he didn’t get a good look at it.

“Wait, let me,” Draco said, and crept towards the edge of the tree to glance forward.

“And?” Harry breathed after a few seconds, and Draco turned back to face him again.

“Human-like. But too big to be a human.”

“A giant?” Harry asked. Giants were not unheard of in the forbidden forest, and Harry desperately wanted to believe it was a friend of Hagrid’s for a second. But Draco shook his head.

“I don’t think so. It has horns and some sort of shawl. Far too elegant to be a giant.” He looked pensive for a second. “Some sort of spirit maybe.”

“Doesn’t matter anyway. Let’s give it a wide berth and go back to the castle as fast as possible. I don’t wanna be stuck in here at nighttime.” Harry exclaimed and Draco nodded. “On three?”

Harry counted down and they both started to creep away from the tree in the opposite direction. Harry could barely feel the warming spell from earlier anymore, and his feet felt frozen with fear, or cold, he wasn't quite sure. They backed away slowly from the creature, praying that it wouldn't notice them, or if it did, wouldn't attack them. As soon as Harry thought they had gone far enough, he broke into a sprint, wanting to get away from it as soon as possible. Draco quickly followed him.

They were once again running through the forest, over roots and trough scrub and branches, and Harry felt his face and arms sting. Somewhere between here and there, he heard a curse and a thud behind him and had to turn back to where Draco had fallen over.

“God, it’s not much more, Draco.” _He hoped_ , “We can’t stay in that damned forest for any longer.” With that, he hoisted Draco’s arm over his shoulder and pulled him up. "Come on, help me a little bit and continue walking. We have to keep going."

“Fair enough,” Draco muttered and started walking. “But who is that ‘god’ you muggle keep praying to? It's disgusting.” 

Harry laughed quietly and pulled him forward faster.

They kept walking like this until they were out of the forest and Harry had to stop moving or he would throw up. He slumped down on the ground, breathing in the cold winter air heavily, and heard Draco coughing violently to his right. 

“You alright?”

“Will be.” Draco replied, “That just _almost_ convinced me to not set a foot into that forest ever again.”

“Only almost? Well, I guess if the incident in the first year didn’t convince you of that, nothing ever will.”

“Yeah, seeing a unicorn being suck out wasn’t really a pleasant occasion.”

Harry chuckled coldly. “That was only the first year for me. In the second year, I and Ron were threatened to be eaten by a horde of spiders in there.”

"Spiders?! Was that for detention again or what was a second grader doing in the forest _again_?”

“Wasn’t for detention. We went in there to find out more about the chamber of secrets.”

“Whyever you wanted to find out more about that blasted thing.” Draco sighed.

“We didn’t have another choice.” Harry got up and walked over to where Draco was lying. “Come on now. It’s getting dark and we’re gonna miss dinner.” He held out his hand to Draco and pulled him up.

“For your information,” he continued after they were walking, or limping in Draco’s case, towards the caste, “we wanted to find out more about the chamber of secrets so we could close it and stop the monster that was petrifying us.”

“You-… You wanted to do what?!” Draco exclaimed from Harry’s right.

“Close the chamber. We succeeded too.” Harry said calmly, staring ahead to the setting sun at the horizon.

“That was you?? _**You**_ closed the chamber?!”

“Yep. Had to fight Tom Riddle and a giant serpent to do so.” He paused. “Oh, you probably don’t know Tom Riddle. Er, how should I say this…?”

“What.” Draco deadpanned.

“Well, Tom Riddle is Voldemort's old self. Like, before he created his other alias. Back when he was a student”

“You. What?” Draco stood there frozen. “You fought the Dark Lord together with a _‘giant serpent’_ as a _**second-year**_?!”

“Yup.” Harry said and turned away to look at the castle of Hogwarts.

Draco sighed loudly. “You’re gonna be the end of me.”

Harry grinned at him and kept on walking up the hill and heard Draco’s footsteps following behind him.

They walked together quietly, both looking up at the orange sky, snow creaking loudly beneath their footsteps.

Then, Harry spoke up again, breaking the comfortable quiet that had settled over them shortly. “By the way, that thing that was sucking out the blood of the unicorn in the first year, you know, during detention, that was Voldemort.”

“ **That was** _ **who**_ **??!** ”Draco yelled exasperated and Harry couldn’t help but giggle at that sight.

* * *

They arrived just in time for dinner to start, and Draco sunk down on the bench with a sigh. Today had been more than just exhausting for him, even without the mad sprint at the end. Dueling Harry was always vigorous and tiring. 

He startled when Blaise spoke up on his left, “You’re limping. What happened?”

Draco scowled and started to shove some food on his plate. “Nothing happened. It’s none of your concern, Blaise.”

“Oh come on, Draco. Something happened. You were gone all day long. What have you been-“ he paused and laughed, “Oh you were with Potter, weren’t you? Did you get into a fight? That’s what friendsdo isn’t it?” he taunted.

“So many bloody questions. No, Blaise, we didn’t fight.” He rolled his eyes and looked around if anyone was in the vicinity, “I guess I can tell you. We were in the forbidden forest.”

“Merlin’s name, what are you doing there? If you get caught, Draco…” he warned.

“Yes, yes, we know. Don’t remind me, Blaise. You’re starting to sound like Granger.”

Blaise hmphed and they kept on eating their meals in silence. It was nice to have some company during meals, Draco supposed. Blaise had suddenly sat down next to him a few days ago after their talk, and Draco had been glad about it. Even if he didn’t show it. He sighed.

“Did you already finish the essay on the Scouring Charm?” Draco asked him, and Blaise eagerly summed it up, being the Charms fanatic he was. Draco had already finished it, but he wasn’t going to tell Blaise that.

* * *

When Draco laid down into his bed that evening, his stomach felt like it would burst soon, and his muscles were sore and tired. All the same, sleep didn’t come to him easily that night, and he tossed and turned in his bed. 

No matter how hard he tried, his thoughts just wouldn't settle and kept turning to his father or what the future would hold for his friendship with Harry, and, no matter how hard he tried to deny it, with Granger and Ron. They and Blaise were the only friends he had now, and he couldn’t stand to think what would happen if his father got wind of any of this.

Sighing heavily, he sat up and grabbed the water glass standing on his nightstand. Downing a few gulps, his thoughts turned to something else. His mind kept and kept replaying the encounter they had with that odd creature today. How they had sprinted away from it. How they had hidden behind the tree. How Harry had pulled him down behind it. And… how he had looked down at him, met his eyes with wide eyes, his glasses slightly askew and his face only mere centimeters away from Draco’s. A shiver ran down his spine at the mere memory, and he annoyedly covered his face with his cushion.

He thought about how glad he was that he was friends with Harry and how it had felt like to dance with him. It always came back to that bloody dance didn’t it? 

He thought about how much he enjoyed spending time with him and his friends, how much he liked dueling with him, and… Realization hit Draco and he cursed.

He was in love with Harry Potter.


	14. Chapter 14

They weren’t able to return to the hut in the days after the incident, with school positively burying them in homework do to, spells to practice, and two-foot-long essays about the Giant Wars to write.

Draco had been practically _living_ in the library, studying and researching the creature they had run across in the forest and was quick to run there when their lessons had finished. Harry couldn’t help but feel as if Draco was avoiding him somehow…

He quickly scolded himself for being so irrational. It wasn’t as if Draco was the only one staying all day long in the library after all. As soon as they had told Hermione about their encounter in the woods, she had, of course, caved in and healed the few scratches they had gotten in their flight and was quick to offer helping Draco and Harry in their search in the library from time to time. Like right now.

Draco and Hermione were buried behind a pile of books, wildly reading and comparing the different pictures and texts to the description that Draco had given. Harry had volunteered to bring them a supply of new books, so to avoid having to actually read them, and was now constantly running between their table and the bookshelves. 

Just as he was about to place the next book on the pile, which by now had grown so high that only Hermione's bushy ponytail could be seen from one side of the table, he heard her cry out abruptly. 

“I think I found it!” she scrambled up to lay the book next to Draco, and Harry followed her quickly. “You said it had horns and a big shawl with an intricate pattern on it, right?”

Draco paused for a second, “Yeah, it was standing out in the darkness.”

Hermione nodded and continued, “I found something that fits the description pretty well.” She pointed towards a small line in the book before them, “I only found it by chance while skimming through that chapter about Scottish forest creatures, so I can’t be sure that’s it’s the only one with a fitting description in there, it could just be a fluke, but-“ Hermione’s ramble was interrupted when Harry laid a hand on her shoulder.

“It’s fine Hermione, just show us already.” He smiled fondly at her.

She blushed slightly and cleared her throat, “Anyways, then, according to that description the creature you encountered in the forest is an Archura, a spirit that protects the nature around it. 

“It would make sense, since the forbidden forest is really big and dangerous, and someone has to look after the animals and plants in it. Plus, humans are entering that forest _on a regular basis_ even though they aren’t supposed to.” she glared at Harry and Draco for a second, “That combined with the things that have happened in that forest in the last couple of years is enough reason for a protective spirit to settle down there if you ask me. And since you didn’t actually destroy anything so far, you were still safe from it.

“Also, it has the ability to shapeshift, which would explain why you haven’t seen it before. It probably had been watching you two for a while, that was just the first time you saw it firsthand.”

They both stared at her for a few seconds, only the sound of pages being turned and people talking silently to each other could be heard. “You-- came up all this out with a few lines in a book?” Harry asked her.

She cringed, “Yeah, I know it’s a lot of interpretation, but I thought it would make sense…”

“No, it’s brilliant Hermione!” Harry said. 

“Quite impressive. And it does make sense.” Draco added, staring contemplatively at the book on the table. 

“Do you think Dumbledore hired it to look after the forest?” Harry asked

“I don’t think Dumbledore would bother taking on a spirit specifically. They are drawn to the places they’re needed naturally. Plus, I don’t think you could _pay_ a spirit with anything.” She paused, “It’s still entirely possible though. We can’t exactly prove any of this.”

They both nodded at that, and Harry moved to pull out a chair from the table and flumped himself onto it.

“So it won’t attack us as long as we don’t do any harm to the forest, right?” 

Hermione sighed, “Yes I think so. You’re lucky you didn’t destroy anything during one of your duels before.” She paused, “That _doesn’t mean_ you should risk it though! I should think that one encounter with a dangerous creature would be enough to keep you **away** from it!” 

Harry shot her an incredulous look, “Hermione, you know we can't stop going there just because of that! we already knew that dangerous creatures were living in the forest. Bollocks, we didn't even know, we met them multiple times before and survived!”

“Yes, you survived! But just because you were lucky most of the time! Harry, don’t you realize that that luck could _run out **anytime**_?!” 

Harry blanched and tore his eyes away from hers. “Yes, I know. But it hasn’t yet. As you said, the spirit is not out to hurt us. And we have only recently moved the bare necessities there!” he gritted his teeth in annoyance and run his hand through his hair, glance moving over to where Draco spacing out. “Draco stop staring at that bloody book! I need your help here!”

As soon as Harry had said Draco’s name, Draco bolted up in his chair and his gaze snapped to Harry almost too quickly. A shiver run down Harry’s spine, “Is something wrong Draco? You’ve been acting kinda weird lately.” He paused and added, “Have you been thinking about that thing with your father again?”

Draco's hand clenched into his robe, something Harry recognized as a gesture he always did when nervous or uncomfortable. “I’m fine, Harry, sorry for spacing out and not listening. What were you thinking about?”

Hermione jumped in, “I was only reminding Harry once again that, even though you were lucky this time, the forest is still incredibly dangerous.” She sighed, “But I guess there’s nothing I can say to keep you two away from it.”

“Guessed correctly,” Harry muttered under his breath, what earned him a threatening stare from Hermione. 

He swiftly bolted up in his chair and started, “So I don’t know about you two, but searching for this bloody thing was pretty exhausting,” he glanced over to the tower of books on the table, “and I’m glad we won’t have to read those after all.” He pushed his chair back and stood up, “Draco, you wanna help me put them away? Hermione, you can go ahead, thanks for your help.” 

He moved over to the books and begun picking up the staple of books, and it didn’t take long for Draco to follow suit. Together they walked towards the shelf dubbed ‘magical creatures’ and Harry placed one book after another in the air before the shelf, watching them magically fly to their correct place. 

He turned to his left and saw Draco balancing the books in his left hand while placing them at the right place in the air with his other. To his surprise, he seemed to do that all unconsciously, staring into space ahead with a look of horror on his face.

“Draco?” he said and paused, “Y’know, it’d be great if you stopped looking like you just run into Voldemort himself. ‘Cause I know how that feels AND looks like, and it’s no fun, I swear.

Draco turned around and glared at him, and Harry cringed inwardly. “Sorry, that was a bad one.” He paused, “But honestly, are you alright?”

Draco took a deep breath and placed the last few books in the air. “ **No** , I’m not alright, so could you please **stop** asking me, Potter?! It’s bloody annoying!” he exclaimed so loudly that Harry could already _feel_ Ms. Prince, the Liberian rise to her feet to throw them out.

But before she could even make it halfway to their shelf, Draco bolted and stormed past Harry out of the library, leaving him standing there dumbstruck and utterly confused as to what the hell he had done wrong.

* * *

After fleeing from the library in a rush, Draco wandered mindlessly through the corridors of Hogwarts, probably going in circles as he knew himself.

His mind definitely felt like it was going in circles, a whirlwind of thoughts of scolding himself for snapping at Harry and panicking at the same time. It was honestly a wonder he hadn’t smashed a window yet. Or had a panic attack somewhere in the corner. Both were very reasonable reactions, he thought, somewhere between the whirlwind going on inside his head.

Somewhere along the line, his feet carried him back to the dormitory, all the way in front of the entrance. He paused there for a second, only then realizing where he was, and quickly entered after saying the password. 

He did all but run into his dorm and threw himself onto his bed in the most elegant way possible when probably being midst a mental breakdown. He pulled his blanket over his head and closed his eyes, forcing himself to breathe slowly. 

He was halfway to feeling somewhat calmed down where a voice spoke up behind him. “Draco, are you alright?” He glanced up from the blanket with bloodshed eyes and disheveled hair to see Blaise standing there next to his bedside table.

“Oh, it's you,” Draco murmured and closed his burning eyes again, thinking Blaise would go away after that. He had always found it unfortunate they had to share their bedrooms with someone else. Privacy was rather restricted that way, he found, but he couldn’t gather his courage to speak to his father about that. He probably wouldn’t be able to do something anyways.

“Merlin, you look like you haven’t slept in days.” He paused, and then sat down on Draco’s bed.

“No shit. Mind your own business, Blaise,” he grumbled and buried his head under a pillow.

“Somethings clearly bothering you, Draco, and I want to know why.” 

Draco angrily shoved his blanket away to stare up at him, “Oh, so you can start rumors about it? Or threaten me?!”

“Draco! You know I’d never do that!” he cried out. Draco shot him a doubtful look and Blaise quickly added, “Yeah, okay, _technically_ I would, but you are my friend! I wouldn’t do that to _you_.” He exclaimed full of conviction and even Draco found it hard to not believe him. 

That didn’t mean he would tell him though.

“I don’t want to talk about it, Blaise. Sod off.”

“You need to talk to someone, though! Just burying it inside isn’t going to help and you know it.” He paused, “Did you speak about it with Potter? Then I won’t bother you anymo-“

He was interrupted by Draco throwing his head on the pillow and groaning. 

“…Is Potter part of the problem?” Blaise asked after a few seconds of silence, and Draco buried his face harder into the pillow. “He is, isn’t he? Did something happen in that blasted forest of yours?!” Draco didn’t answer, and Blaise pushed on, “Draco come on! Tell me.”

With a sigh, Draco pushed himself up and turned to face Blaise, “I- I had a realizationa few nights earlier, and uh, kind of screamed at Harry today because of it. In the library.” He looked down at his hands guiltily and swiftly added, “That’s it. You can go now, Blaise.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Why did you _scream_ at him? In the library of all places?!” he paused and added, “And what bloody _realizations_ did you have??”

He scowled at Blaise. “I answered your question, Blaise! Now leave me alone, bloody hell! I want to sleep!”

He held up his hands calmingly and stood up from Draco’s bed. “Alright, keep your answers. I’ll pester you about it later. When you don’t look like a damn vampire.”

“Shut up, Blaise. Everyone knows vampires don’t exist.”

“Don’t they?” he said ominously, “I think if you saw yourself, you’d say otherwise…” 

Draco threw a pillow at him and drew his curtains shut. 

Just before he drifted into well-deserved sleep, he thought that maybe sharing his bedroom with Blaise wasn’t so bad after all.

* * *

When Harry arrived in potions in the morning after spending the whole evening staring up at the ceiling anxiously, running over his conversations with Draco repeatedly, he was tired and determined to find out what was wrong the day before. What he had done wrong. And how to make up for it. 

So when he arrived in potions and saw that the seat next to Draco was still free, he grabbed the chance. He muttered a quick word to Hermione and run and made a beeline to the table where Draco was sitting and staring into space.

He only noticed him when he pulled out the chair with a creak, and his eyes bulged when he saw it was Harry who was sitting down next to him. 

“Harry! What the bloody hell are you doing?!”

“Uh, sitting?” he retorted, and Draco rolled his eyes. Harry glanced over at him and was happy to see that he looked fairly more rested than he had the day before.

“And where’s Blaise going to sit?” 

“Er- I don’t know. Haven’t thought that far.”

Draco _Tch_ -ed and Harry almost beamed at the familiar sound. “Of course you didn’t.”

Harry couldn’t think of anything to say after that and sat tensely in his seat as an uncomfortable silence fell between them. 

Blaise strode into the room one minute later, threw one look on their table, and smirked. He hurried over to another table where a Slytherin girl sat, whose name Harry remember couldn't for the life of him.

Just as he slumped onto the chair, the bell rang and Snape strode into the classroom, door slamming close behind him. 

"Today you will try your best at successfully brewing the aging potion. Last time We covered the recipe, the ingredients, and the conditions under which the potion takes effect." He fixed them all with a stare. "So I should think that you’re all adequately prepared to brew a _perfect_ aging potion. _Anything else_ will result in a ‘zero’ from me.”

Everyone immediately scrambled for their textbooks and cauldrons and begun brewing the potion, including Draco. Harry glanced to the side to see him opening his textbook and reread the page about aging potions they looked at last time. 

Harry swiftly stood up to get the ingredients listed on the blackboard. He’d happily leave the reading to Draco, maybe he’d get him to explain it to him.

When he returned, Draco had already started the fire under his cauldron and Harry laid down the ingredients in the middle of the table.

“I got your ingredients too.” He said when he saw Draco glancing at him.

“Thanks”, he nodded and quickly busied himself with his cauldron again. There was already something boiling in there, and Harry was clueless as to what it was.

He quickly started too, glancing over to Draco’s progress from time to time, and copying some of his steps. “Y’know, when you tutored me in potions a few months back I really made some progress. We should do that again sometime. After dueling maybe?” he spoke up.

“Yeah.” Draco didn’t look up from his cauldron.

“Brilliant.” Harry finished lamely and frowned. What the bloody hell was up with him? He turned over to look at him and started, “Draco, I know you find my questions annoying, but what-"

Snape’s voice interrupted him, snapping at the class, picking up Neville’s potion, and taking as a bad example to demonstrate to the class. He strolled towards the blackboard to give some more instructions, and probable, threats. Honestly, Harry wasn’t sure what to consider a _threat_ from him anymore, everything the man said was possible to be one.

Harry blocked him out after a few minutes and turned towards Draco instead. Sighing, he tore off a small piece of parchment, jotted down a quick message, and slid it over to Draco.

> Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry then.

Draco quickly skimmed it and looked up at Harry with an incredulous look on his face. He shook his head and wrote something on the backside of the small parchment. 

> No, you didn’t do anything wrong. I am the one who should be apologizing. _-DM_

Harry frowned at the message and wrote another message below Draco’s sentence. His frown turned into a small smile though, when he saw the initials Draco had put there. Only he would think of something like that. 

> What’s wrong then?

He paused for a second and swiftly added _-HP_ at the end of his message before slipping it over to Draco’s side of the table.

He picked up the paper to answer something, probably another deflection like the one the previous day, when a cold voice interrupted him.

“See that? They’re exchanging letters now!” Parkinson whispered loudly from behind them, and Harry heard someone laugh, “So romantic!”

Harry's head snapped around towards her voice, and he saw Parkinson leaning over to her neighbor, Nott, both of them staring straight at them. Parkinson's snickering only intensified when Harry turned to face and fix them with his most menacing glare.

“Stop it, Parkinson.” Harry glanced over at Draco worryingly, who was staring at the blackboard, paler even than normally.

"You haven’t got anything better than that, Potter?" she scowled at him overly disappointed. 

“Not for you, you bloody snitch.”

Pansy actually looked slightly offended, and Nott joined in, “Apparently it’s pretty common,” he turned to Parkinson with a casual look, “to grow weak and embarrassing when in love. Draco can tell you all about it, can’t you?” he smirked at Draco’s hunched form. 

Harry’s very slim patience snapped, and he sprung up from his chair, ready to stamp over to their table and pound their mocking faces into the stone ground when Draco’s hand caught him before he even made a step forward.

Draco stared at him for a second, and Harry knew with certainty that, in his head, he was insulting Harry’s Gryffindor tendencies at that very moment.

“Aww” Parkinson cooed, “Yes Draco, save your boyfriend from doing something stupid.”

Harry yanked at Draco’s hand, but his grip was firm and pulled him down into his seat. 

“Calm yourself down, you chump.” He hissed frantically at him, “Your reckless Gryffindor ‘tactics’ won’t do jackshit right now. Let me handle it.”

Harry sighed and tried to calm his breath. Unsuccessfully of course. 

He mimed Draco and turned towards the blackboard again, taking deep breaths. He focused on brewing after that, both to try and somehow save his aging potion and to give Draco a chance to do his thing, whatever that might be.

Not even five minutes after that, Draco stood up and he smoothed down his trousers, another anxious gesture of his. He purposefully strode over to the back of the class, apparently taking another supply out of a closet, and walking back in front of Parkinson and Nott’s table, calm mask making way to a faint smirk.

Harry curiously shook his head and returned to his potion. He’d find out soon enough what that all was about. 

In fact, not only twenty minutes later, after Harry had long since given up his potion and handed it to Draco to save, a loud explosion and a cry made all their heads turn around.

Some disgusting-looking liquid was covering both Parkinson's and Nott’s faces, and slime was dripping down from Pansy’s fringe on the table, and her cauldron empty. Harry hoped it itched.

He heard something that sounded suspiciously like Ron's snickering coming from the front of the room and spun around to look excitedly at Draco and throw him a triumphant smile.

Draco however turned pointily away from him when he caught glimpse of him, and all Harry saw of him were blond streaks and flushed ears. Not pale at all, like he usually was. Harry blamed it on the light.

Thundering steps interrupted his thoughts, and he looked over to see Parkinson storm down the stairs and out of the room, gagging sounds still following her even when the door slammed close.

With a loud sigh, Snape stood up and walked towards her table, where he cleaned and put away her cauldron with a flick of his wand. 

“You are free to go to the infirmary as well, Mister Nott, if you wanted… You certainly do look a bit green.” He added, and his eyes twitched.

Nott then jumped up from his seat and followed Parkinson out of the room, but not before shooting a menacing look at Draco. Harry loudly exhaled and laid his head down on the table.

And when he glanced back up at Draco again and beamed at him in delight, he got a small smile in return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there, hoped you liked this chapter!
> 
> I was arguing with myself quite a lot when writing this! I like Pansy's character really much, and I actually would've liked her to be friends with Draco too, but the story needs a strong antagonist, and I couldn't think of anyone better for that than Pansy!  
> Also, I'm sorry that Theodore is gonna pretty OCC in this fic, but I RAN OUT OF OPTIONS OKAY? NOT MY BAD THAT THERE ARE 5 'unidentified Slytherin students' IN THEIR YEAR ALONE! 
> 
> Also, I don't know how to write angst and I'm always struggling with it!! Hope I could get it across though!


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